HOAs exist to maintain home resale value, and little else. They protect the “investment” of owning land and the homes on them. The laws around the practice are draconian and overreaching.
But theres no reason a superificially similar institution couldn’t be built for equitable reasons and then only be given reasonable amounts of power.
Good luck with that…we’ve tried it since the beginning of time…those institutions invariably turn into HOA like cluster fucks of bad management.
HOAs are rare where I live, but we often have property management that oversees multiple units to take care of and fund common elements.
They’re not all perfect, but most aren’t nearly as bad as what I’ve heard about HOAs.
I don’t know what country your perspective is based on, but if it is the US, where HOA shittyness is the norm, then yeah, that makes sense.
But that’s not because the structure of a co-op can’t work or do good things. It’s because the culture, zoning laws and regulations over there are UTTERLY FUCKED which means real change is slow as hell to realize, since it involves changing course on decades of legislation, and convincing a LOT of minds to look at home-ownership differently.