zlacker

The article establishes the national relevancy directly:

> His principal opponents are the housing associations such as condominiums and townhouse communities that are home to an estimated 60 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population. About half of those organizations have ‘no hanging’ rules, Lee said, and enforce them with fines.

Millions of Americans live under covenants that prevent them from doing their laundry outside, lest their neighbors see. That should strike you as at least a little ridiculous. It also goes beyond the normal “just live somewhere else” mantra: you can’t relocate 60 million Americans.

>>woodru+(OP)
This is still a poor article. If that's really the point, then they should have focused on many other points related to covenants and not confused that point by including people who were not under covenants. They could also tell us what their solution is (make associations illegal?). Or are the just complaining without any solution or even a salient argument.

>>giantg+c3
It's a human interest piece: I took the point of Carin Froehlich's story to be that it affects more than just the people who are forced to not air-dry their laundry.

Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry"). I think the journalist who wrote this probably trusted us to understand that.

>>woodru+(OP)
Does it maybe applying to about half of a fifth of the population really make it nationally relevant? Let's not forget the people among them who like this reg for some reason.

Also, this says nothing about residents usually having some say about the regs in an HOA. Don't like something? No need to move somewhere else. Run for a spot on the board.

>>woodru+N5
Even if it was a human interest piece, the good journalists get external perspectives. They don't just parrot whatever the one person says.

"Given the simplicity of the problem ("I can't hang my laundry [without people, including local officials, complaining]"), the solution is a little obvious ("I want to be allowed to hang my laundry")."

This makes no sense. The lady was allowed to hang her laundry! The other guy entered into a contract that didn't allow it. There is no problem here (other than neighbors not being neighborly).

>>woodru+(OP)
> Millions of Americans live under covenants that prevent them from doing their laundry outside, lest their neighbors see.

It has nothing to do with the neighbors seeing the laundry and it has everything to do with keeping a certain kind of people (historically, poor) from living in these areas.

>>dfxm12+Oa
> Does it maybe applying to about half of a fifth of the population really make it nationally relevant? Let's not forget the people among them who like this reg for some reason.

Yes, 60 million people (in 2009, it's probably more now) strikes me as nationally relevant. And yes: if people do like these regulations, then changes to them are also relevant.

>>woodru+(OP)
They haven't established how many people actually want it. If 60 million Americans live in communities with such rules, presumably at least a substantial number of them, if not an actual majority, want visible hanging laundry to be prohibited. They don't seem to have even asked how many of those people actually want to hang laundry versus wanting to keep it prohibited, they just picked that to have a big number to put in glorified press releases.

And there's no evidence at all that it's an issue worth addressing on a national scale. Presumably in some places a majority want it prohibited and in others a majority want it permitted, why not let them all do as they please?

Unless of course somebody somewhere draws a fat paycheck for representing "Project Laundry List" (exactly who is really funding that anyways?) and needs to justify their position by getting glorified press releases published as news articles.

>>giantg+6b
Yeah, a good piece would interview The Neighbors and ask what they think about it. It could be very telling or even damning of them