Well I fly in Canada, similar issues most of the time except in the St. Lawrence Valley where I normally fly, which of course had many lovely farms.
I digress. I would avoid water. My instructor, when I did my PPL about 27 years ago, asked me what I would do if I had the choice between trees and water. I chose trees. He asked why. I said "because I can't swim worth a sh!t!". He said good answer. Hitting water is like hitting concrete. In a fixed gear single, you are almost guaranteed to flip it. Unless you have practiced water egress while upside down, and have appropriate gear (life vests) or are an excellent swimmer, I would tend to avoid water, and any bump on the head will mean not getting out. Roads are good but as noted there are power and phone cables running alongside the road, but also crossing the road in many places, and these may be hard to spot until too late. If you must, don't try to look for the wires, they are almost impossible to see. Instead, look for the poles. If you see two poles on opposite sides of the road, more or less lined up with each other, there is likely a cable across your path.
You'd be surprised what you can pull off though. Recently a guy in a 172 was sightseeing over downtown Montreal. The squirrel in the cage that turned the windmill stopped running for some reason, and the guy had to force land over downtown. He managed to land on a fairly wide, but very busy boulevard in the heart of the city, with only a minor prang of a wingtip on a street sign. They had to dismantle the plane to get it out. Very lucky. If I were him, I would have run straight out to buy a lotto ticket.
Getting back to water, some guy in a Cherokee had to force land in Lake Superior last week (stupid: fuel starvation over open water). He got out but his wife drowned. I am pretty firm, I would never chose water except maybe 6 inches from shore.