RIVATE GOVERNMENTS" SUCH AS HOME-owners associations and condominium cooperatives provide all manner of collective consumption goods, from road maintenance, trash collection, and snow removal to transportation, policing, and medical care. These organizations were practically unheard of in 1960, but today some 54.6 million people in the United States live in various neighborhood associations. That figure continues to rise each year because a majority of new housing units in rapidly growing urban areas are privately governed. Local private governments are also becoming common in Britain, Spain, Brazil, and even in several former and current communist nations, including Russia and China. Homeowners associations (HOAs) would seem to have passed the market test, but not without controversy. Some residents chafe at restrictions imposed by associations on home improvements, pets, the number and age of residents, and so forth. Others are upset that associations need not operate under the rule of one-person; one-vote, but instead often impose property requirements (one home, one vote) and other limitations on the franchise.