I've lived in all sorts of places from large acreage to subdivisions with 8,000 square foot lots. And let me tell ya, on 8,000 square foot lots you are going to have the jackass who thinks he can open up his 12 foot driveway into his own personal body shop, keep his three dogs outside barking all day, line up all his unused furniture down the side of his house and basically operate like he's on a 50 acre ranch.
That’s exactly right. HOAs do have a place. The idea that they are all run by crazy zealots is a bit of a myth. The whole purpose of an HOA is to preserve property values and—generally—to impose common sense restrictions. I know of developments subject to “no large truck” rules and the reason generally is because of the size of the driveways and how close they are to one another, not because some busy-body doesn’t like the look of a truck in a driveway. As other posters point out, if you don’t like HOAs, don’t buy in a development subject to one.
I have never lived in an HOA neighborhood because I just want more freedom than they afford. That means I could live next to a guy that parks a motorhome in his driveway, and it’s happened.
My final solution was to simply get a farm in central Kentucky. My driveway’s just over 1/4 mile. I really don’t care what my neighbor parks in his front yard. :)