[dsfyu404ed]

Having lived in MA and every New England state north of it MA is highly, highly variable when it comes to what happens on your property being your business and nobody else's.

Basically anywhere that was incorporated back when they were still burning witches is going to be downright terrible. Of the areas that were developed later some were not blind to the mistakes of the past and these tend to be pretty good. My own town's bylaws are pretty libertarian. They even enumerate the right of the self employed to run a business out of their own home (so long as you don't park too many commercial vehicles over 26k in a residential zone) and are sprinkled with all sorts of great language that limits the government's ability to control the individual. It's almost as good as not living in MA.

That said, while the legal and procedural side of things may be ok, the cultural side is not that great. MA (in my anecdotal experience) is light years behind northern New England when it comes to cultural respect for property rights. Being that busybody who calls the cops because the neighbor's kid won't stop yelling or reports your neighbor's non-permitted driveway repaving to the town is far more tolerated in MA. That kind of stuff is not considered socially acceptable in northern New England for the most part.

[ghaff]

I'm sure it does vary. My MA town was incorporated in 1653 and I've never had neighbor or town issues--but then we're all on a fair bit of land.