The good and bad of Homeowner's Associations in Phoenix, Arizona


If you live in the Phoenix, Arizona area, chances are that you live with a Homeowner's Association, or there's one nearby. And there are good things, and bad things, about them. As someone who has lived in a neighborhood with an HOA for over twenty years, I tend to understand the good. But I also understand the bad. And it has to do with rules.

The West has traditionally been a place of freedom, where a man can do as he pleases without having to say "please and thank you" to a lot of people telling him what to do. The wide-open spaces invited that way of thinking. The song that says, "Give me land, lots of land, don't fence me in" says it the best. And yet when you have neighbors, the expression "Good fences make for good neighbors" really applies.

Rules are like fences. Whether they're municipal laws, or Homeowner's Association rules, it's all the same. It's a bunch of rules that tell people what to do. Speaking for myself, I've never needed much in the way of rules - I didn't need to study the local laws to, for example, not rob a liquor store (an extreme example, I know!). I also didn't need to study local laws to know that I shouldn't run red lights, or park my car on my lawn. I certainly didn't need to know local law to know that I shouldn't have a yard congested with weeds, and covered with stuff that should have been hauled off to the dump years ago. But that's just me. Some people need to know specifically if something is against a law, or a rule.

When I went shopping for a house, I intentionally looked for a neighborhood with a Homeowner's Association. I wanted good fences, and good neighbors. And no, it's not perfect, there are always going to be neighbors who really don't know that they shouldn't do stuff, like leave their junked cars on the street, or play loud music at 3 am. I understand. But an HOA neighborhood gave me a better chance to be around like-minded people, and I've been happy here.

On the other hand, I've seen ads for houses that advertised "No Homeowner's Association", and I can understand that, too. There are a lot of things that HOAs don't allow, that many people love to do, like restoring old cars, and having the bits and pieces lying around, and having the noise and commotion associated with that. And not everyone can afford to have a shop separate from their house to that kind of stuff. Luckily, Phoenix has a LOT of places without HOAs, where you can do whatever you please, and be around like-minded people.

I like living in a neighborhood with an association, but then again I also like living with a wiener dog. To each his own! In Phoenix you can live and let live. I like that.
If you liked this article, and would like to see more, please consider becoming a patron of History Adventuring on Patreon. If you're already a patron, thank you! You make this happen!

Click here to become a Patron!
History adventuring posts are shared there daily. The basic tier is a dollar a month, and the PhD tier, which includes "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos, is five dollars a month, and is discounted for seniors, veterans, and students.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more