A private community is a residential community that can be an association or a proprietary organization. Associations can include condominiums, homeowner associations or cooperatives.
Whereas governmental communities are financed with taxation, where taxes typically have little connection with benefits, private communities are financed as payments for benefits. In a hotel, for example, the public goods such as elevators and security are paid for from room charges.
One early American example was Lucas Place, laid out in 1851 in St. Louis, Missouri, the first of about 50 such private places unique to the city. Today, there are "60 million people who now live in roughly 300,000 private communities" in the United States.
Famous quotes containing the words private and/or community:
“The private buildings [of Virginia] are very rarely constructed of stone or brick; much the greatest proportion being of scantling and boards, plastered with lime. It is impossible to devise things more ugly, uncomfortable, and happily more perishable.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Jesus, Buddha, Mahommed, great as each may be, their highest comfort given to the sorrowful is a cordial introduction into another’s woe. Sorrow’s the great community in which all men born of woman are members at one time or another.”
—Sean O’Casey (1884–1964)