[monknomo]

What I don't understand is why it isn't the municipality's responsibility for this kind of thing

[quickthrowman]

For one, lots of suburban municipalities are not generating enough tax revenue to maintain the infrastructure they already have. Letting a developer and HOA take care of road and storm water infrastructure frees up tax dollars for other uses. It’s a win-win for municipalities.

[thfuran]

But owners are paying one way or another, and it's almost certainly going to be more efficient to have administration centralized rather than each subdivision's HOA separately managing a tiny section.

[bluGill]

That is strong towns's position, but it never checks out - towns have mostly been doing that for decades now.

there is a lot of room for variation in quality of service and towns don't have a way of taxing those who want the town snow service more than those who don't.

[crooked-v]

It should be, except that a lot of people demand taxes too low for that municipality to function if it actually did everything, so legally required HOAs get used as a shitty stopgap because the work still has to be done.