When I lived in a Boston three-decker, it seemed as if everyone in the neighborhood had a leaf blower. For front yards that were tiny and back yards that weren't much bigger. You could probably mow both in half an hour with an old-fashioned push mower. Raking the yards would have taken about the same amount of time.
What really bothered me was that there seemed to be some sort of neighborhood code that no two leaf blowers could be operated at the same time. The first one would start up at 7:30 on Saturday morning--the earliest time allowed by town ordinance. The blowing would last 20-30 minutes. Then a few seconds of blissful silence. And then the next leaf blower would start up. And the noise would travel up and down the streets until about noon. I became oddly grateful for the one neighbor who had paved over his entire backyard so that four cars could park there--at least there were no trees adding to the leaf piles and he didn't have a leaf blower.
The town had a regulation on how loud your leaf blower could be. But that really didn't help, in neighborhoods where the houses are very close together.