National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States · ¶35

And if a standalone concrete and particularized aesthetic injury can be recast as mere offense, what made the environmental plaintiffs with standing in our prior cases different from Hoagland? What saved their aesthetic injuries from being classed as mere distaste for the actions of government or private industry? In Laidlaw, the plaintiffs had standing to fight the pollution of a river in which they had “aesthetic and recreational” interests. 528 U. S., at 183. On the Court’s retelling, it is critical that those plaintiffs did not only like to look at the river’s “natural beauty,” but also liked to use it by fishing and swimming in it and by hiking and camping alongside it. Id., at 180–183; see ante, at 4. Certainly one may enjoy a river not just by looking at it but also by swimming in it and hiking along it. But the principal way a person enjoys a historic building or object is by…

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