The facts don't seem to support your implied claim that being governed by people who do live in your neighborhood is better. At least not in Florida.

My own personal experience from my wife having owned one condo and she and I having owned four houses is not very encouraging for your claim either. Of the four HOAs involved, the two that were run entirely by management companies (i.e., by people with no personal connection to the neighborhood, with little or no activity from the community members on the Board that we could see) were fine, they kept the common areas maintained and basically did nothing else that affected us. The condo association, while it had a management company, also had a Board filled with community members who had nothing better to do than harass everyone else, which they did with an energy that would have been amazing if it had been directed towards something productive. The other HOA had no management company, just the Board of community members, and was very intrusive, and from what we learned from neighbors, had been a mess for the entire history of the community.

So we now live in a neighborhood with no HOA, we only have to deal with the municipality. We like it.