Review of Community Associations: The Emergence and Acceptance of a Quiet Innovation in Housing (Contributions in Economics and Economic History) (Hardcover)

The research and authorship of this book were funded by a grant from the Land Economics Foundation of LAI. It began as a way to organize the papers of Byron R. Hanke, a member of LAI, whose work as Chief Land Planner for the Federal Housing Administration, and authorship of The Homes Association Handbook, published by ULI, the Urban Land Institute, and Planned Unit Development with a Homeowners Association, Federal Housing Administration Land Planning Bulletin 6, and founding member of the Community Associations Institute, were the hallmark efforts that started the rapid growth of housing development where a homeowners, condominium, or other forms of common interest community associations were used to own and manage common areas and facilities.

Community Associations traces the historical roots of common property from medieval feudalism, the New England town, various communal and utopians ideas and examples to earliest contemporary prototypes in England and the United States. It then explores the decades after W.W.II, when rapid suburban growth made the provision of common areas and facilities a desirable and much needed part of large scale communities that outstripped the capabilities of the public sector to provide parks and ballfields, swimming pools, other recreation facilities, and, perhaps most critically, common open space to preserve woodlands, streams, historic structures, that were envision by land planners and developers as a better living environment that could be created if there were a means to commonly and privately own and maintain such features.

Unlike most previous literature that advocate the use of community associations, this book seeks to dispassionately explore the rise of community associations, their economic impact on communities, their strengths and weaknesses, and their evolution from a means to ensure maintenance and operation of common ownership elements into a private governance system that both protects the common interests of property owners and restricts their freedom of action beyond those restrictions imposed by local, state, and national government.

An invaluable resource for all professionals in the related fields of land economics.

Recommended reading from Frank Spink and Jo-Ann Neuhaus of George Washington Chapter of LAI in Washington, DC



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