Comment by xp84
6 hours ago
They're not popping up anywhere. They're only ever installed in a brand-new development. (Okay, I'm sure somewhere at least one, probably very small, neighborhood has voluntarily formed one for some specific reason, but in general.)
They are in all new developments in most states because the suburb model is financially unsustainable (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 for the argument why), so, if you want to build a nice new development, the town/city is going to say "Who's gonna maintain that little park? Who's gonna cut the grass in the green spaces? Who's gonna sweep the streets?" etc. Not to mention, every amenity outside individual homes (clubhouse, pool, playground) etc. needs to be maintained. Cities can't afford to take them on as public parks, and the individual neighborhoods whose home prices paid for their construction don't really want them to be public either.
And the developer needs to have an entity with which all these responsibilities will vest when they're done building, so, HOA needs to exist.
The alternative is either no shared amenities of any kind, or trying to get the whole city to approve paying for the perpetual maintenance of a new public park when building a new housing tract. Good luck getting that passed, since most existing residents (besides the ones in the next tract over) would say "F that, I'd never go there, why should my taxes pay for it?"
there's nothing inherently unsustainable about suburbs, they just aren't currently paying enough in property taxes for infrastructure
Cities definitely can afford to maintain all that stuff.
Suburbs take too much and yield too little tax dollars
Then why do they have the nice schools? Somehow, suburbs both have the best amenities and the lowest taxes but they are unsustainable? That link is a word salad BTW. In reality, since suburbs have low crime, the policing is cheap. And policing is by far the biggest expense in most cities. Most incorporated suburbs have balanced budgets. Mine does. It also has the best schools in the county. But somehow the large city next door, with billions in debt and all the jobs (and thus the payroll taxes) has terrible services and terrible schools. I think you just don't like suburbs and will twist your logic into knots to claim a rational reason for it. Truth is, you just don't like suburbs. Most people do, get over it.
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