>, the history of HOAs and restrictive covenants on deeds. Everyone acts as if it is for the betterment of the neighborhood, consistent looks upkeep of property and so forth. When you dig into this you'll find out it is about keeping out undesirables from your area. Originally those undesirables were of different races. [...] are still deeds that have unenforceable restrictive covenants that deny property to certain races.
That retelling of HOA history rooted in racism is common but it's not a persuasive explanation for the new HOAs created today. In other words, there can be _2_ independent motivations and they both end up with an "HOA":
- motivation #1 : roundabout way to keep black people out --> leads to HOA
- motivation #2 : maintain baseline property values --> leads to HOA
You have to look for the counterfactuals that eliminate reason #1. E.g. Places up North like Anchorage Alaska and Calgary Canada didn't have a massive "white flight" and yet the suburbs up there also have HOAs.
Those neighborhoods also have HOAs. Maybe it's for reason #2 -- protecting property values.
The immoral HOA motivations in the 1950s don't necessarily dictate the same motivations for creating an HOA today. Sometimes there's really no threat of "other races" and instead, people really do want to collectively protect their property values.
The removal of the undesirables from an area is still the motivation of an HOA. You can gloss over it by saying protect property values, but that's just code for, this group of people is undesirable and it locks people out of communities. So while race isn't the motivation it's been replaced with class. It's still immortal.
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>, the history of HOAs and restrictive covenants on deeds. Everyone acts as if it is for the betterment of the neighborhood, consistent looks upkeep of property and so forth. When you dig into this you'll find out it is about keeping out undesirables from your area. Originally those undesirables were of different races. [...] are still deeds that have unenforceable restrictive covenants that deny property to certain races.
That retelling of HOA history rooted in racism is common but it's not a persuasive explanation for the new HOAs created today. In other words, there can be _2_ independent motivations and they both end up with an "HOA":
- motivation #1 : roundabout way to keep black people out --> leads to HOA
- motivation #2 : maintain baseline property values --> leads to HOA
You have to look for the counterfactuals that eliminate reason #1. E.g. Places up North like Anchorage Alaska and Calgary Canada didn't have a massive "white flight" and yet the suburbs up there also have HOAs.
Another counterfactual is this list of majority black wealthy neighborhoods: https://spotcovery.com/the-best-affluent-black-neighborhoods...
Those neighborhoods also have HOAs. Maybe it's for reason #2 -- protecting property values.
The immoral HOA motivations in the 1950s don't necessarily dictate the same motivations for creating an HOA today. Sometimes there's really no threat of "other races" and instead, people really do want to collectively protect their property values.
The removal of the undesirables from an area is still the motivation of an HOA. You can gloss over it by saying protect property values, but that's just code for, this group of people is undesirable and it locks people out of communities. So while race isn't the motivation it's been replaced with class. It's still immortal.
My last house had a HOA and blacks were definitely not a minority in my neighborhood. Definitely middle to upper middle class neighborhood.