Modesto Neighborhood May Hire Armed Guards To Cut Down On Crime « CBS Sacramento: MODESTO (CBS13) – Residents in a Modesto neighborhood are so concerned about crime they may bring in armed security guards.
The residents are members of the College Area Neighborhood Alliance.
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I gather that this "alliance" is a voluntary neighborhood association. Normally this sort of thing fails because of the free rider problem: not enough people contribute to pay for the services. The free rider problem gets solved in HOAs by mandatory membership, the power to assess for common expenses, and the sometimes-Draconian assessment collection methods. That solution, however, leads to all the abuse of power issues that we see so often.
3 comments:
The same analogy could be made re local government, which is not a purely voluntary arrangement. And like HOAs, they too have mandatory participation/taxation to avoid the free rider problem.
I think there's a important distinction with mandatory membership HOAs even though they provide common services and infrastructure like local governments financed by compulsory property assessments.
People may not relish paying property taxes to a local government. But they know those taxes pay for a much more basic and broader array of services vis HOAs including public safety and education.
Plus I believe people tend to recognize the legitimacy and authority of local governments but hold HOAs to a far lower degree of respect and acceptance.
These "Alliances" are not "voluntary" and they don't represent residents. Here's how it works.
HOA despot forms a group called "neighborhood alliance". The only members of the "alliance" are the HOA corporations. The homeowners that the "alliance" claims to represent are not members of the alliance.
If you want to see private examples of this scheme, check out:
Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods
Friendship Alliance
Texas Neighborhoods Together
Even though only the HOA corporations are members, the "alliance" claims to be representing the people in the subdivisions by virtue of its representation of the HOA corporations.
Anyone familiar with what happened in George Orwell's Animal Farm Owners Association realizes that this can't end well.
All homeowners are equal, but some are more equal than others.
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