3 ms·

This does not match my personal experience. I live in a 10,000 person neighborhood that is covered by an HOA, and it is a very diverse place. In fact, one of th

This does not match my personal experience. I live in a 10,000 person neighborhood that is covered by an HOA, and it is a very diverse place. In fact, one of the things that I like about living here is that there are people from all over the world living here.

shakezula 5y ago
I'm genuinely glad that is the experience you've had. I hope that model would be the one that's more common. Unfortunately in my experience it's the exact opposite. Here they're used and abused by exclusively rich, mostly-white neighborhoods to keep them that way.
- eplanit 5y ago
  You may be conflating class and race (it's a common error). A neighborhood of wealthier, successful people (regardless of race) probably want their neighborhood to be a quieter, nice-looking, pleasant place. I've lived in both HOA and non-HOA neighborhoods. If there's a barrier to entry such as price, then generally a more successful (and hopefully more refined) type of person will move in, and generally the homes will stay nice-looking without rules. Without that, then an HOA to try to maintain an aesthetic baseline can be very helpful. All the homeowners benefit from maintaining an attractive neighborhood, in that their home values will be higher.
  - rickspencer3 5y ago
    This matches my experience. Our neighborhood is rich in a mix of housing. There are large apartment buildings with small, relatively affordable apartments, townhouse of 2 sizes, and then single family homes that run from large to very large. I assume that the many people who own one-bedroom condos are just as interested as the people who own the six-bedroom houses in keeping the common areas well maintained.
  - shakezula 5y ago
    I'm not conflating class and race, I'm establishing a connection between the two. I'm very aware that it's generally a "rich" thing. That doesn't mean that race plays no factor, and even then, if it's purely a class issue then it's still an issue in my eyes.

shakezula 5y ago

I'm genuinely glad that is the experience you've had. I hope that model would be the one that's more common. Unfortunately in my experience it's the exact opposite. Here they're used and abused by exclusively rich, mostly-white neighborhoods to keep them that way.

eplanit 5y ago
You may be conflating class and race (it's a common error). A neighborhood of wealthier, successful people (regardless of race) probably want their neighborhood to be a quieter, nice-looking, pleasant place. I've lived in both HOA and non-HOA neighborhoods. If there's a barrier to entry such as price, then generally a more successful (and hopefully more refined) type of person will move in, and generally the homes will stay nice-looking without rules. Without that, then an HOA to try to maintain an aesthetic baseline can be very helpful. All the homeowners benefit from maintaining an attractive neighborhood, in that their home values will be higher.
- rickspencer3 5y ago
  This matches my experience. Our neighborhood is rich in a mix of housing. There are large apartment buildings with small, relatively affordable apartments, townhouse of 2 sizes, and then single family homes that run from large to very large. I assume that the many people who own one-bedroom condos are just as interested as the people who own the six-bedroom houses in keeping the common areas well maintained.
- shakezula 5y ago
  I'm not conflating class and race, I'm establishing a connection between the two. I'm very aware that it's generally a "rich" thing. That doesn't mean that race plays no factor, and even then, if it's purely a class issue then it's still an issue in my eyes.