> it seems that those homeovner associations are on level of North Korea and Soviet Russia
The HOA is an agreement that is designed to keep a neighborhood from going downhill by residents parking on the street, or turning their yard into a parking lot, or from painting their house some atrocious color. As normally designed, they are little more than a codification of "don't be a jerk."
The problem comes when people get involved. The sort of person who really, really wants to be on the governing board of the HOA is exactly the sort of person who should NEVER be allowed anywhere near a lever of power. These are the sorts of people who are out on the street with calipers to see if your lawn is over the prescribed length, or measuring the height of your mailbox. They take great joy in meddling with other people's lives, and they hide behind the veil of "I'm just enforcing the HOA contract!" to be douchemobiles.
Whether this is an improvement over "either get your car out of your yard or I'm gonna punch you in the nose," is an exercise left to the reader.
Because one car becomes one car and a boat, and then it becomes one car, a boat, and a project car that is always being worked on. Then the brother-in-law moves it for a while, and it becomes two cars, a boat, a project car, and an assortment of quad-bikes.
Does it always go this way? No. Does it go this way often enough that people worry about it? Yes.
For clarity I mean white puritan ideas of what property lawns etc should look like. If you travel the world you will find that other cultures choose a different look to their houses. White picket fences and green lawns are a mostly colonial construct
What an absolutely absurd comment. It strikes me as fairly offensive to a lot of people to suggest that rules about maintaining your yard and not trashing your property are inherently associated with "whiteness".
The HOA is an agreement that is designed to keep a neighborhood from going downhill by residents parking on the street, or turning their yard into a parking lot, or from painting their house some atrocious color. As normally designed, they are little more than a codification of "don't be a jerk."
The problem comes when people get involved. The sort of person who really, really wants to be on the governing board of the HOA is exactly the sort of person who should NEVER be allowed anywhere near a lever of power. These are the sorts of people who are out on the street with calipers to see if your lawn is over the prescribed length, or measuring the height of your mailbox. They take great joy in meddling with other people's lives, and they hide behind the veil of "I'm just enforcing the HOA contract!" to be douchemobiles.
Whether this is an improvement over "either get your car out of your yard or I'm gonna punch you in the nose," is an exercise left to the reader.