alt Hacker NewsI lived in a townhouse community with an HOA for a few years. They handled paving the roads and all the lawn mowing and landscaping (which included weeding, as well as replacing the tree outside my unit when it died).
Not that I'd ever want an HOA again, but that was nice and your experience isn't canonical.
In a reasonable place, the government handles the roads, and you can hire a landscaper pretty easily.