HOAs or community associations are common features of new housing in the United States:

“Nearly 60% of homes built today are in some sort of community association,” said Jake Gold, executive director of the Foundation for Community Association Research, based in Falls Church, Virginia. “There were (about) 10,000 community associations nationwide in 1970. We estimate now there’s about 370,000.”

A majority could mean:

1. This is what developers prefer.
2. This is what communities prefer for new housing buildings or developments.
3. This is what residents prefer.

I am not sure all these assumptions can be accepted together. Of course, it does not just happen that HOAs and community associations happen so regularly today. But the motivations of the three groups above could be very different. Do these associations give residents peace of mind (and developers like this because it helps sell units)? Do communities like this because some of the cost of the new development is carried by the association?

Given that there are some strong reactions against community associations, it would be interesting to have more data on what kinds of new developments have community associations.