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NATIONAL CENTER FOR POLICY ANALYSIS
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Many Americans Opting for Planned Communities

Daily Policy Digest

State And Local Issues Issues

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

One in every six Americans lives in some form of planned or association-managed community. These enclaves are usually characterized by sets of rules known as covenants, conditions and restrictions -- which can enumerate everything from paint colors to be used on homes to parking and noise bans, even maximum sizes for dogs. Observers say the lists of prohibitions and rules seem only to grow.

Some 47 million people in the U.S. live in 18 million homes in 230,000 such communities and pay around $35 billion in fees each year.

Of these some 20,000 enclaves -- home to 8 million people -- are gated communities.

Around 1.25 million residents serve on community-association boards.

In big cities, half of new home sales are in association-managed communities, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Planned communities aren't just enclaves for the rich, although most are overwhelmingly white. Many function as private governments, supplying roads, police and other municipal services, and regulating residents' behavior, down to specifying the age of residents that are allowed.

Some social critics attribute the growing popularity of enclaves to two historically American preoccupations: Utopianism and distrust of government.

Source: "America's New Utopias," Economist, September 1, 2001.

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