I'd be ok with something like that, but I think I'd need neighbors who were interested in having common resources in the first place.
Where we've got it wrong is that only thing we have in common is a shared interest in how the market perceives us, and since markets are batshit crazy, we end up doing crazy things like maintaining a lawn in a drought just for the aesthetics of it. If there were actually something we had in common, like I dunno a lathe or something, there would be something with practical considerations around which to anchor HOA policy.
(bias note: I don't live in an HOA, but my friends seem to hate it an I'm offended by the lack of character/sense in the HOA-governed neighborhoods that surround mine.)
