The facts don't seem to support your implied claim that being governed by people who do live in your neighborhood is better. At least not in Florida.

My own personal experience from my wife having owned one condo and she and I having owned four houses is not very encouraging for your claim either. Of the four HOAs involved, the two that were run entirely by management companies (i.e., by people with no personal connection to the neighborhood, with little or no activity from the community members on the Board that we could see) were fine, they kept the common areas maintained and basically did nothing else that affected us. The condo association, while it had a management company, also had a Board filled with community members who had nothing better to do than harass everyone else, which they did with an energy that would have been amazing if it had been directed towards something productive. The other HOA had no management company, just the Board of community members, and was very intrusive, and from what we learned from neighbors, had been a mess for the entire history of the community.

So we now live in a neighborhood with no HOA, we only have to deal with the municipality. We like it.

> People love to hate on HOAs but not all are bad, and in general they are a good example of self-governance, when the alternative is having people who DON'T live in your neighborhood regulate your neighborhood. Which would you prefer?

The latter, because I can kick them out of office, and because silly rules will impact a much larger number of people, and a large number can have their voices heard.

When your HOA has only 20-30 members, variance is high. It's a lot easier for people to abuse HOA power for their own personal gains.

That's a false dichotomy. Everyone has to comply with laws regardless of what neighborhood they live in. The only difference is that the HOA has more stupid rules than the city. I'd rather have fewer rules.

The microcosm of subdivision-level governance where Karens/Kens with too much free time relish in power-tripping over their neighbors... All things equal, I'll take state, county, or city government over HOAs.

The implication is the people in my neighborhood know anything at all about what would make sense from a neighborhood regulatory standpoint. The sell is to drum up ancient peasant fears of the far away feudal lord vs local villagers gumptions, but the reality is usually denying genuine domain expertise besmirched by the mark of coming from a higher centralized government, in favor of rule by the loudest of the local bigots.

If HOAs are a good example of self-governance, I can only conclude that self-governance is bad.

Buying a house is often a multi-decade commitment. A specific HOA might not be bad today, but what about 10 years from now?

I, and I suspect many other people here, prefer to live in countries where there are no neighbourhood associations that can dictate the look of your house, what colour of paint you must use, etc.

I’ve owned three places, two in HOAs and the currently place doesn’t have one. The HOAs were fine. I don’t miss them at all. At their best they just provided services (trash pickup, landscaping, etc.) that I can easily contract for myself.

If you don’t need an HOA (because there are actually shared common elements that need to be maintained) then why would you want one? And if you do need one, why would you want it to do anything beyond what’s required to maintain the shared bits?

People love to take extreme positions, because they’re easy and satisfies an emotional itch they have, not because they’re correct. The same can be said about government regulation which is analogically similar. You have those who fallaciously infer that, because government regulation can go wrong, it is therefore bad (contra abusus non tollit usum). Others take opposing socialist views.

People should instead think in terms of ends. Human beings are social animals. We have obligations toward others (here, the community). That includes obligations that concern the environment that the community occupies. So the fruitful focus of energy and debate should be what this means for the community (what are these obligations, and why) and if and how to regulate them.