own the moon or walk as the crow flies

Though it is true that a discontented person who owned the whole world might want to own a tourist center on the moon, that person's life is limited, and even the amount that can be owned is limited.  It is better right from the beginning to be contented. - the Dalai Lama

Friends of mine have a cottage in a little community on georgian bay where some of the wealthier people own beach-front property. The guy with the first house on the beach built a big, impassible fence right down to the water and even a bit into the water so that nobody could possibly cross it. You couldn't even dig a tunnel in the sand underneath without a lot of effort. No-one can walk along the beach since the fence went up. And even though everybody knows you can't own land right up to the water's edge, nobody is bold enough or angry enough to go out in the middle of the night and just rip down the fence!

In the UK, under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW) (created after 100 years of campaigning) people can walk freely all across "mountain, moor, heath, downland and registered common land" and as before, walkers have right of way along paths through private property.

...walking as the crow flies
and things don't always go downhill.