Plant flowering vines. You can do sweet peas from seed this year and see what your neighbor says. If nothing, then plant perennials next year.

Have you spoken with the neighbor?

@cecily 7A - the home was just purchased by an investor and I don’t know who it is. 😣

You say the fence is shared with your neighbor. Whose property is it on?

If the house was bought by an investor, you can probably plant a bunch of flowering vines to grow up it. He'll probably never notice, will probably prefer flowers to chain link and actually getting him to discuss it will be hard.

When you say privacy shrub, are you thinking of something taller or the same height as the fence, and are you looking for year round, evergreen privacy or something that is just for the summer?

Where do you live? Some vines will not grow in certain areas.

A clean edge on the driveway would help a great deal. Cutting off the ragged edges and then laying down bricks or landscape blocks in the void would be a vast improvement. But that may be more costly/labor intensive than you’re looking for.