Originally published on Nextdoor, May 11, 2026
Sometimes people say the darndest things and it really makes you wonder if everyone is fully present in the room. But before I get to them, a real thank you to everyone who shared their own stories above. You showed up, you said it out loud, and you reminded a lot of us that we are not the only ones living it.
What follows is part civics lesson, part Saturday morning cartoon. If you grew up watching a small cartoon scroll explain how a bill becomes a law, you already know the assignment. Sit back. Hum if you need to.
Now, back to the darndest things.
A few of you responded to my last post with the bold, electrifying, never before attempted suggestion that if I don’t like noise I should move to the forest. First, thank you. Genuinely. I had not considered uprooting my entire life and relocating to a wooded area to escape my neighbor’s Bluetooth speaker. That is a fresh take. I will bring it up at the next family meeting, right after sell the house and fake our deaths.
But the comments did raise a real questions. One I think we in residential neighborhoods need to sit with for a minute. Do we actually know what a city is? Because based on some of the replies, I am starting to think a few of us are working from a different dictionary. So, in the spirit of community service, allow me, your unpaid and deeply tired neighbor, to walk through it.
A city is not, as some have suggested, a lawless frontier where the loudest person wins. A city is also not a forest. I want to be very clear about that, because apparently it needs to be said out loud. A city is a legally incorporated municipality, which is a fancy way of saying a group of humans at some point sat down together and said “wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived near each other, but did not have to fight each other over goats and well wate?” Let’s write some rules. And then, and this is the important part, they wrote some rules.
Those rules are why you stop at red lights instead of treating intersections like a Thunderdome. Those rules are why your trash gets picked up on Tuesday instead of forming a mound at the end of your driveway. Those rules are why water comes out of the faucet instead of you walking to a creek with a bucket. Those rules are why your neighbor cannot legally raise forty seven emus in their front yard. I checked. For reasons. And those rules, stay with me here, are also why there are limits on how loud you can be, where, and when.
That last one is called a noise ordinance. It exists in every city in America. Not because Pompano Beach or your city is uniquely uptight. But because every functioning city on Earth figured out a long time ago that I want to live near other people and I want to do whatever I want at maximum volume are mutually exclusive lifestyle choices. You really do have to pick one.
If you want option two, I have great news for you. There is a place designed specifically for that. It is called the forest. The very same forest you keep recommending to me. It is lovely there. Quiet. No HOA. No neighbors. No one to tell you to turn it down. The owls do not file complaints. Go. Be free. Live your loudest life. The forest awaits you with open branches.
And here is the part that really blew the comment section’s collective mind last time, so brace yourselves. A city is divided into different areas for different purposes. I know. Sit down. Have some water. There are entertainment districts, which are places designed to be loud. Bars, clubs, venues, Atlantic Boulevard on a Friday night. The Pomp on a Saturday night. Society built those on purpose so the rest of us would not have to listen to your cousin’s DJ set from our bedrooms. There are commercial corridors, which are strip malls and restaurants and businesses. Mildly noisy, closes at a reasonable hour, tolerable. And then there are single family residential neighborhoods, which is the place where you actually live. Designed for, and I cannot stress this enough, living. Sleeping. Existing. Drinking coffee on the porch without your skull vibrating.
You chose to live in zone three. I chose to live in zone three. We both signed up for zone three. Zone three has rules. The rules are not a surprise. The rules were here before you, before me, before the speaker you bought at Costco last Memorial Day. If you wanted zone one, zone one exists. It is a fifteen minute drive. It has parking.
So to recap for the people in the back. A city is not a free for all. A city is not a forest. A city is a place with rules, and the rules apply to you the same way they apply to the rest of us trying to drink coffee in peace. If that feels oppressive, again with love, the forest is right there. I will even help you pack.
Comments remain open. Please be sure to tell me, in all caps, that this is a city. I will be taking notes.
Stay tuned. My next verbose diatribe will cover South Florida’s other great residential art forms. The front yard treated as overflow parking, with vehicles scattered across the grass like a used car lot that gave up. The backyard paved into one uninterrupted slab of concrete. The camper parked on the property with its own quietly rotating cast of paying guests.
