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Meh. There are plenty of good HOAs that make sure your neighbors aren't assholes as well as tank property value dying stupid shit.
And they also pay to maintain shared services, like utilities and stormwater management. It's not black and white.
There's no need for a micro-state to accomplish these goals.
There has to be some entity. I won't disagree that they get out of control, but at the foundation they serve a very specific purpose. Once again, people are the problem. Perhaps AI will take over and robots will live in the houses.
There has to be some entity.
Community
Sewer main leaks. Need to replace a 6 foot section of 8 inch line right in the middle of the road. Also need to replace the connection to the city main because the mess of baby wipes clogging it damaged it and the city says it's unusable now. Effluent also damaged a gas line and the gas company says that needs to be replaced but they can work within the water company's schedule. Gonna cost like 800 grand. Tell me about the community? Because that's probably the insurance that the HOA procured who will cover the costs.
Sewer pipes and water mains are usually owned by the city around here. Gas mains owned by the utility. I don't understand why an HOA would come into play. Maybe if you're talking about a triple-decker style condo and the section of pipe between the street and the property, but no way in hell is that costing 800 grand.
I'm talking about subdivisions of single-family homes that requested greater density and as a giveback to the municipality remain private rights-of-way and utilities in exchange for greater density. You want to build 100 homes on 1-acre lots but the municipality has 2-acre zoning. It's a farm so there are no utilities and you're building it all from scratch. Municipalities will say sure you can do greater density, but you'll create an HOA for the maintenance of utilities and for the stormwater management BMPs you have on the property, and you'll create an operations and maintenance manual for those BMPs, and you'll bond with the municipality in the event you fail to maintain them. That's what HOAs are literally for, not for deciding on housing color and if you can fly a flag.
A functional community would not let infrastructure degrade to that point because it's not in the interest of the community. This event you're describing comes from greedy powerful people pushing off needed maintenance to buy a new Mercedes. The community would have systems in place to manage the infrastructure, infrastructure that could not be managed would not be built.
You're basically asking "how would anarcho-communists deal with this huge mess made by authoritarian capitalists?"
Who's paying for the maintenance? What happens in the event of an "act of God"? What is "the community" you speak of? I don't know what this has to do with greed. Things cost money. You need to have a structure for how costs are levied amongst homeowners. I don't get what is so difficult to understand. Would you prefer there just be a bunch of lawsuits when any little thing goes wrong?
If you're in a city, these things should be taken care of by the city and state. There is no need for an additional micro-state.
As someone who lived in a neighborhood without an HOA, I completely agree with this. I had so many bad experiences with the neighborhood without the HOA. Aside from people not taking care of their yards or houses, including one person who replaced their grass with laminate tiles, there were much worse things.
There were constantly cars parked up and down the streets blocking your view and making it impossible for two cars to pass. We had two neighbors feuding over parking in front of each other's houses. One of them decided to line the curb with cones. And the other would just leave their trash can out 24/7 blocking the curb.
I had a neighbor start a computer refurb business out of their garage. Which caught on fire at least 3 times. One time it caught on fire and there were so many cars parked on the street the firetrucks couldn't make it to their house.
The neighborhood I live in now has the perfect balance. The HOA is run by a 3rd party who does not live in the neighborhood. And all rule changes require a meeting and at least half of the residents need to be in attendance before it can be taken to a vote. This keeps one neighbor from taking things over and turning into one of those nightmare HOAs you always hear about.