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Notes -
Generally, rural areas are much easier to work with for several reasons. First, outside of incorporated municipalities, you generally only have to worry about permitting from the town or county, which generally are set up to default allow. Farmland is not especially valuable, and even inside a municipality or village, you have far fewer people to have to negotiate with, and who are generally starving for any kind of economic growth.
There are exceptions, of course. One is areas in which the state or federal government owns most of the land. In that case, your development will probably be confined to municipalities who can then afford to be a lot pickier about what they allow. Another is areas that are already wealthy and have little need or interest in further economic growth, like, say, Sedona. They will show a lot more resistance to changes that alter the makeup or vibe of the area. Combine the two and you get places like Aspen, well-established as a playground for the wealthy, with a moratorium on all new residential construction and renovation, and surrounded by unbuildable, wild, federally protected land.
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