Opposition to Green Development

I recently found this article on the New York Times website and thought it was very interesting and deserved a closer observation. I found this to be true because rarely do i find in our media opposition by the general public of the installation of things that move a society in the direction of being more sustainable. Normally we find the opposition in the government and congress when debating taxes and what to pay for and not, but in these cases it has nothing to do with cost but everything to do with location, because the things being used are already paid for and installed.

Because of the different tone this article takes on, it raised some questions in my mind. Should we go green even if it is against the wishes of the people who have been living in the area first? Also it raises the question of who gets to decide what land can be used for? Is there really such a thing as owning land?