You have a very narrow experience of the world, then. The most bland, ugly, tasteless neighborhoods I’ve seen are all in HOAs. The most beautiful are all without HOAs.

But that’s all beside the point, because this article is about how HOAs are bad for people who need somewhere to live, not about what offends your (unusual) taste.

This is a good observation. When HOAs try to regulate appearance, they regulate everything to a uniform mediocrity. That leads to using draconic rules and enforcement mechanisms needlessly. Often enough, this becomes a cudgel for Karens to enforce cultural norms not everyone shares. It becomes a tool of racism and cultural domination. It seems as if HOAs themselves need to be curtailed by law and regulation, and limited to functions that can't be provided by municipal government nor by individual homeowners.