Good fences = good neighbors?

I know someone who always wanted the cute little cottage with the white picket fence.  However, being in the military, she decided to wait until she retired to make the purchase.  The home she found didn’t have the fence.  However, because of the current political and cultural climate in this country, she was having second thoughts about having a fence to keep herself separated from her new neighbors.  But it turned out the lot next to hers was an easement for the utilities.  And somehow over the years, everyone had decided to use that lot as a private drive to their backyards.  Problem was, this had turned into people cutting a corner, literally, by driving through my friend’s front yard.  Yup, the ‘good fences makes for good neighbors’ thing was sounding pretty good to her after a few months.  So, she hired a contractor.  On the day the fence was being put in, one of her neighbors made the turn into her yard as usual.  And hit a newly installed 4x4 post.  Instead of admitting his mistake, he got out to yell at the contractor.  Demanding payment for the damage to his car because of the post that was now in what he perceived as a driveway.  Unfazed, the contractor, merely pointed out the obvious.  The post was on the corner of his client’s lot and his client had never agreed for her front yard to be anyone’s driveway.  After the fence was finished, my friend had several days of angry neighbors demanding she take the fence down.  Never mind the fact it was her yard, bordering on an easement owned by the city and thus the fence didn’t technically affect any of them.  Then a real disaster happen.  The house on the other side of the easement sold.  To someone who decided they also didn’t want the neighbors driving from the easement through their backyard to all the other houses on the block.  Thus, the whole house of cards of unofficial alley system through everyone's backyards came crashing down.  And another fence went up.  Leaving the easement as a tiny island accessible only from the street, as it was intended to be all along.  Okay, we want what we want.  That's just human nature.  And sometimes what we want is convenience, to leave things the way they have always been, to be left alone.  But if the way we’ve been doing it was wrong from the beginning, then, my goodness, yes, someone should come in and tell us to stop it.  And we shouldn’t be getting angry about having to do what is right.  And I shouldn't have to tell anyone that showing some basic respect is always the best course of action.  I don't know when 'Love thy neighbor' went out of fashion, but it needs to come back.