commons rights

As we were talking in class last time there were three examples from my home town that occured to me. I tried to firnd articles that would back up and explain more about them, however, they either did not exist or they were under a newspaper and they want people to pay for their articles, so I will just have to give the basic outline.
One example of the use of commons areas and private individuals is the access that is given to public areas through private land. There is a lake in Idaho in the Snake River canyon, fed by springs. The trail to this lake is through a farmer's field. Around five years ago the trail just went straight through and hit the canyon rim. Now the farmer has blocked that access and "influenced" people to go to the edge of the field so the crops were not in as much danger. The detour has not added much, but it shows some of the effects that can happen if commons are abused.
The other example had consequences much more drastic than that. There is a formation again in the Snake River Canyon called Pillar Falls. In the summer of 2004 the trail down to the pillars was blocked off. The abstract of that article can be found here, the article title is "Acess Denied." The article explains that the owner of a hydrologic facility which is accessable from that same trail had to close the trail to the pillars because of vandalism. Because individuals did not care for public and private areas those "commons" were closed.
The third example is about community building codes. A few months ago there was an announcement be the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to build a temple in the city of Twin Falls. The land that it will be built on has restrictions that the structures built there can go no higher than 50 feet. The residents in the area are also very against the construction of that building. It has been written in letters to the editor in the Times News newspaper that they will do all they can to prohibit that construction. It is just interesting the opposition that some people put up against certain things. A few years ago a different denominational church was constructed and they built their steeples much higher than the alloted range. They were given permission without complaint.
It is just interesting to see the influences of a few people and the way that it affects us all. The many instances that are around us will hopefully open our minds to other and possibly even solutions to new problems that arise.