Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it's sold the new owners have to opt in?
For the most part, I'm wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what's truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?
A lot of things an hoa covers is already covered by the township here so I'm unsure why you'd join one. But they're also not as common here because of that. I know some neighbors tried ages ago and something like 80 percent told those prone to screw off.
My experience- the difference is enforcement. In the US anyway, the town isn't going to tow cars parked illegally in the neighborhood or cite someone for their junked up yard.
Town here absolutely cites for lawn maint. We've let it get too long and they've sent a warning. They also warn if a car is parked too long on the street. They don't care if a car is parked in a driveway and never moved though, that's fine.