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Comment by mikepurvis | Hacker News Reader

Maybe, but it's hardly a unique take:

"Critics of HOAs have attacked them as a “tool for exclusion” that can encourage racial segregation. There’s no available data on the race of the owners of each particular house, so Clarke and Freedman couldn’t test this accusation directly. But they did compare the racial demographics of neighborhoods with or without HOAs, and found that neighborhoods with HOAs tended to be richer and less racially diverse."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-04/do-homeow...

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A bit of advice that I got that seems to be rather applicable here:

As an ally, you should be on the lookout for rules that are being selectively enforced. These are a core tool of institutionalized discrimination.

> that can encourage racial segregation.

Unnamed critics state things "can" do things, while the following sentence shows there is no evidence. Then there is a follow up statement that the racial demographics show that HOAs tend to be richer (A major point of HOAs is to improve and maintain neighborhood values), and less diverse. The second part on its face might seem upsetting but, you'll find largely suburban communities ARE overall less diverse. It would maybe be relevant if they found and stated "HOAs in the same zip codes as non-HOA neighbrhoods of equal value are less diverse", that might show some racial differences, but then not even necessarily bias.

In short, bloomberg is a rag and should be used to pickup your favorite pets droppings with.

edit: forgot a word

Bloomberg is at least conventional media, though, and even right-leaning media, at that. It's a bit different from a comedian making bombastic, click-baity videos for the internet.

What makes you think Bloomberg is right-leaning? My understanding is that WSJ has been right-leaning in NY finance journalism and Bloomberg has been left-leaning, historically.

Without commenting on the quality of the Bloomberg piece, exclusion is quite literally the reason that HOAs were created. The original, explicit, and completely legal purpose of an HOA was to exclude specific races and creeds and we cannot dispute that.

Argue devil's advocate all you like, but there are many HOAs with "No Jews, Asiatics, Blacks, or Mulattos allowed" still on the charter and "Whites only" written directly into the deed.

Wasn't that long ago, and many of the people who wrote those bylaws are still alive...

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Homeowner_association#/History

> Having established the HOA, the developers have expanded their scope, giving them authority to regulate changes to residences, landscaping and maintenance requirements, color of houses, etc., a variety of other requirements and amenities that the developers believe will make their project more desirable to the market.

The last paragraph in that history section made me laugh, because now HOA's are mainly for developers to ensure they can sell their homes and then after the fact when they're no longer relevant you're left trying to satisfy an HOA and they always say its to keep property values up and what have you.

> Argue devil's advocate all you like, but there are many HOAs with "No Jews, Asiatics, Blacks, or Mulattos allowed" still on the charter and "Whites only" written directly into the deed.

Restrictive covenants have been a dead letter for decades, and they predate modern HOAs by definition.

Maybe Bloomberg should hire you rather than write this drivel. It's not my burden to provide evidence for something I am pointing the logical failures and wild claims of a rag magazine. Thank you for the link though it's informative

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