It Takes a Private Neighborhood to Make a Local Revolution.

Byline: The Urban Institute

WASHINGTON, July 18 (AScribe Newswire) -- To the three traditional levels of government -- federal, state and local -- add private neighborhoods, home to nearly one in five Americans. In the last 40 years, the number of private communities -- homeowners' associations, condominiums, and cooperatives, some of them gated -- has grown from less than 1,000 to more than 250,000.

In his new Urban Institute Press book, "Private Neighborhoods and the Transformation of Local Government," Robert Nelson details how private community associations have increasingly eclipsed local government in providing public services and regulating land use. Nelson, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland and former Forbes magazine columnist and economic analyst at the U.S. Department of the Interior, argues that private associations can foster more …