Controversy in North America
A variety of interests are involved in the controversy about clothes lines, including frugal living, global warming, individual rights, the economy, private property, class, aesthetics, health, energy, national security and nostalgia.
When mechanical dryers were first introduced, only well-to-do families could afford them and they became associated with affluence. However, now that most people can afford a mechanical dryer, clothes lines have become associated with a "home-town" character in neighborhoods because they are indicative of a low-crime area. (Outdoor clothes lines may be used less frequently in high-crime areas because of the risk of clothes being stolen - a worldwide phenomenon.) Also, environmental concerns and higher energy prices have created a new generation of clothes line advocates. Still, the old association with poverty persists in some people's minds.
The controversy surrounding the use of clothes lines has prompted many governments to pass "right-to-dry" laws allowing their use. According to Ian Urbina, a reporter for The New York Times, "the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the country’s roughly 300,000 private communities" are forbidden from using outdoor clothes lines.
As of October 2009, the states of Florida, Colorado, Utah, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont had passed laws forbidding bans on clothes lines. Similar bills were under consideration in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia. At least eight states restrict homeowners associations from forbidding the installation of solar-energy systems, and lawyers have debated whether or not those laws might apply to clothes lines. A British filmmaker, Steven Lake, is planning to release a documentary in 2011 titled Drying for Freedom about the clothes-line controversy in the United States.
In Canada, the province of Nova Scotia's first NDP government passed An Act to Prevent Prohibitions on the Use of Clotheslines on December 10, 2010 to allow all homeowners in the province to use clotheslines, regardless of restrictive covenants. The province of Ontario lifted bans on clothes lines in 2008.
Some other affluent suburban municipalities such as Hampstead, Québec or Outremont, Québec also prohibit clotheslines.
Read more about this topic: Clothes Line
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