I am completely unfamiliar with a world in which HOAs fix roads.
I have also never lived in a city whose government got rid of weeds. What even is “weed abatement”? (Joke: Is this some slang for getting rid of the local marijuana grow houses?)
One example is Musk Thistle. It grows extremely rapidly, reproduces at a rate that's unbelievable, and is very difficult to kill. In this heavily farmed region, a few of them growing in a roadside ditch can turn into tens/hundreds of thousands of them within a year. Not only do they outcompete just about any other plant including crops, but they have incredibly sharp barbs that injure livestock.
In publicly owned spaces or abandoned fields/lots, the county has people that searches for them and sprays them with a herbicide. If they're spotted on your private land, usually they'll notify you that you have X days to cut them down (before they flower and seed) or they'll come do it whether you want them to or not. Some counties will send a bill for this, some fund it from property taxes.
If you haven't lived in an area where they vigorously grow it sounds like a huge overreaction, but left uncontrolled because one neighbor isn't taking care of it, it can become impossible to keep it out of your yard. According to wikipedia, a single plant can produce 10,000 seeds that disperse through the wind and remain viable for decades in the soil. Even the desire to not have a painful rapidly reproducing weed in your yard aside, they can do incredible damage to cropland.
It's a shame though, it's a kinda pretty flower. Imagine a vivid pink sunflower.
Scotch broom seeds will also be viable up to 30 years.
Who else is going to fix the roads? The county and state aren't going to, they don't own it. We seal the asphalt every 5-8 years and repave every 15-20 (I've only lived her 10 years, so those are very rough guesses).
That's not a given. I live in a non-HOA area, and everyone on my street has trash collection from the same company on the same day. Thursday night, we set our carts out. Friday morning, we bring them in.
There's a wide middle between HOA bureaucracy and pure chaos.
My neighborhood - HOA handles it, trash pickup twice/weekly.
My parent's neighborhood (where I grew up) - no HOA, everybody handles it themselves, so adjacent houses end up with pickup on different days.
My previous neighborhood - county service (grandfathered in, the county stopped providing it decades ago, probably because people want a tax cut).
Just like electricity, gas, etc.
There is a single trash company serving our area. Everyone just has a contact with them.
Of course not, that's not how it works. The city contracts with a trash collector and they set a weekly schedule for each neighborhood.
> Who else is going to fix the roads?
Is this a trick question? The county of course. They own the roads.
HOAs have no purpose.
Dumb AF? Yes, no argument. Reality? Sad but true.
Neighborhood streets - it's mixed, largely on age of development. Pre-1980 (very roughly) that state/county likely own and maintain the roads. Post-1980 (roughly) it's an HOA or condo or similar.
Similar for trash.
Is this a trick answer, or just deeply ignorant. Within 20 miles of me there are different places where a county, a city, a neighborhood and the state own the roads.
Seriously, WTF do you live where there's one answer to this question? Apparently so far out in the boonies you don't even have an interstate.
Wrt weeds, I suspect you are simply unaware of all the maintenance tasks your city does. Consider yourself blessed!
Not that I'd ever want an HOA again, but that was nice and your experience isn't canonical.
As far as the road part, I agree, doesn't mean that it's reality though.