Unfortunately, human beings are notorious for their tendencies to act in their own interest before applying another person's interest. Here, you have a local government which earns a substantial percentage of it's revenue from property taxes, and people pay more property taxes when they live on more valuable property, thus a disincentive is created for the local government to defend the right of a property owner to do use property as they see fit. The government has a *much* larger incentive to maintain the status quo, enforcing laws like this that create a social image that increases, or at the very least maintains, property values. Money is the real reason behind most of the activities that involve humans. That money may be in the form of taxes, or oil, or land, or gold, but as far back as humans go - it's always about the money.

I agree about the churchgoer comment. Just take the BTK killer for an extreme example. He was the president of his church, and worked in law enforcement (sort of). Also, priests spend a lot of time in church, and while many of them are legitimately benevolent, there is a very vocal malevolent minority. And that's all it takes. In general, I find churchgoers to be a judgemental lot (even in spite of the bible's admonition that God will be the judge so people shouldn't), so my advice is to look elsewhere for good morals. Like to parents and teachers.

As long as people are well off and not too crowded, I think you'll generally find a low crime rate.