Most people haven't heard of Orleans. Most who have heard of it believe that it's a province in France, the namesake of "New Orleans" in Louisiana. Orleans is a village that's located in the town of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, however, and it doesn't really look like France at all. It has that classic Cape Cod look that is quintessential Americana. It's a small, tight-knit community that also takes democracy very seriously, and doesn't just use it as some buzzword. That's why residents of Orleans recently got to vote in their village about how they want to handle home and apartment rentals. They residents met at a school gym and discussed the village's situation, and there the people decided that they would institute some new rules in terms of what sort of properties could be rented, who could stay there, and what the prices should be.

In short, the residents passed Article 18, which will regulate short-term town rentals, prohibit subletting, and limit occupants to two per bedroom. They will also require trash removal, off-site parking, and much more. Although Orleans is a small village, they have over 655 short-term rentals available there, as Cape Cod is a huge vacation destination. And the residents believed it was about time they took the initiative to dictate the terms of their own area. You might not like what they did, but the fact is that this is what true democracy looks like. It also helps with renting too, as a better class of renters will leave the properties in better shape, which will foster even more renting in the future.

It's a Right All Americans Should Have

What Orleans shows America is that everyone, in every town, should have a right to dictate how their housing is handled. If you live a community, for instance, and some big wig comes in and buys up homes to turn them into apartments, you should have a say about who moves in there, and what the landlord is allowed to charge. Yes, there will be a lot of people who read this and scream, "No! That's up for the market to decide!" But the market, first and foremost, is the immediate area where those properties are located. These are permanent fixtures of this enterprise, the neighbors who deserve to have some say over how their community is treated. If you don't believe that, then you don't believe in the founding principles of America. It's a long forgotten aspect of the founding documents, but America did not only offer freedom of speech and the freedom of religion; it also offered the pursuit of happiness, which included the right of free association. People who permanently live in a community have every right to dictate terms for that community insofar as they pertain to housing regulations.

Unfortunately, most communities will not get to have their say. There's just something about these Democrat-heavy, rich-and-famous vacation spots in the northeast that have more freedom than everyone else. Martha's Vineyard, for instance, decided within one day that they did not want to house 50 illegal immigrants, and so the national guard swooped in and removed them by force. Your little town in Ohio or Pennsylvania does not get to do that. You have to live with whatever the government commands. This also means you have to live with very high rent charged for rentals, and any sort of tenants moving in that the owner wants. Your property values and reputation as a community do not matter, but they should.

The Rental Market Would Change Overnight

If the people in towns and small communities actually got to dictate terms of rental properties, the market would entirely change in a hurry. Normal people would not allow landlords to charge so much for rent. They would not allow big companies to tear down historic properties and replace them with multi-story apartments. The people would stand up for their community and shoo away the money-hungry landlords and businesses like a pesky fly. And that's precisely why most communities do not get to dictate these sorts of terms. Big corporations don't pay the government so that the normal people have an actual voice. They pay so that only money has a voice.

Rental properties would be so much more affordable, and far more plentiful, if only ordinary people that lived in ordinary towns got to call the shots in the market, instead of huge corporations.