Mickey Mouse

Avid reader here is, almost surely, also a viewer of John Oliver's Sunday show. This last one's major segment was on the evils of home owners' associations (HOAs). Here is the wiki page and even some of flak.

The point of HOAs is to shift the costs associated with new house development from the municipality (or county, depending on the state) to the new house owners. It would seem to be a win-win sort of idea; the government gets more housing, but avoids having to tax existing houses, to some degree, to cover the added costs of the added houses. Oliver's piece goes on to show how the HOA structure is ripe for corruption, and, it turns out, often is.

Where Oliver missed his nucular missile argument was in not comparing the HOA organization to Disney's special tax status in Florida. For myself, I fail to see how one is materially different from the other. I'm willing to bet there's at least hundreds of HOAs in Florida not named Disney.

In Florida, Colorado, and Vermont, over 40% of the population lives in an HOA.

I'm willing to bet that there's coffee table plotting in The Villages and such to get out from under the HOA regime. As Oliver so adroitly pointed out in his piece, residents have little recourse when the HOA goes on a rampage. And foisting off a considerable amount of the upkeep to the county is a win-lose proposition.