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I doubt precast would be cheaper. You would save on masonry labor but that is about all. A five foot fence isn't going to give much privacy anyway, and I think threerun is onto something. My father used to love hedges for the purpose. We had a cedar hedge, a blue spruce hedge (don't ask), and a chinese elm hedge. It took about three years for them to get established, but you couldn't force your way through them.
You would want to check on the requirements for the soil and water, and potential for pests, but I would probably go this way instead of a fence. Start the hedge alongside a five wire barbed wire fence, and you will have a significant barrier. The hedge will just grow up around it. My only caveat would be not to skimp on the soil amendments. I'd trench up the area about a foot deep and have a good mix of compost and topsoil and time release fertilizer put in, along with a couple of irrigation pipes with emitters or replaceable drip hose at ground level. Have it professionally trimmed *at a truncated pyramid angle instead of straight up and down* with a planned first stage at four feet height and a foot wide at the top, then once the branching has filled in, allow it to go to five or six feet and two feet wide, or whatever is allowed. You'll get a thicker hedge wall that way, and denser outer foliage.
You will have to have the hedge trimmed at least twice a year, but the wall would require painting and maintenance that would be more than that.
When I lived over in the eastern panhandle of WV, cedar was the predominant evergreen. I helped a friend of mine gather over 200 transplants (native) and we placed them 2 deep along his cattle fence that bordered a pain in the butt neighbor of his. Within 3 years they grew to 10ft and provided a total barrier. He then planted another row of hedgeapples (Osage trees) 5ft behind the cedars, which will grow into an impenetrable thicket of bush with an array of 1-2" thick thorns.
I seriously doubt the neighbors pit bull will ever get thru. And if they do- his donkey will kick the living **** out of it (which they already killed one of his neighbors pitbulls).
Galvanized fencing might be an alternative and can be backed by vine-type plantings indigenous to your area which will quickly grow to afford you privacy and also be way more aesthetically appealing than a concrete block wall which just seems so, well, very tacky and unappealing. "Real" brick could be quite lovely as could a masonry-crafted local or imported wall of local stone but both of those will entail the expenditure of multi $$s and I doubt you'd be posting here if you were in the multi-millionaire club. Cheers!
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