My girlfriend lives in an upscale, gated community. Her HOA has done the exact opposite. They change the gate code weekly as way to "protect" themselves from this situation. However, it's kinda had the opposite effect - tailgating has become totally acceptable, even the norm, as people can't keep up with the gate code changes. Amazon drivers usually just sit outside for a minute or two, then tailgate into the neighborhood.

The only gated community / apartment complex's I've ever seen where that was not normal are a subset of the ones that have an on-duty guard - specifically the subset with guards who recognize all the occupants and take the information of anyone they don't recognize.

Her community is not guard-gated, but it's extremely snooty/snobby. A number of years ago, before the weekly gate-code changes, the HOA started doing annual code changes on Halloween. Why Halloween, you might ask? Because the service staff of the community (landscapers, house cleaners, etc.) had the audacity to bring their children/grand-children to the neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Residents felt the service staff was just trying to guilt them into giving candy. Keep in mind, all these residents are multi-millionaires, mostly retirees, and they were bitching about having to spend 5 bucks in candy to make children happy.

Isn’t that usually how the rich stay rich? Does this really seem too surprising?

In my experience, and I’m generalizing a lot, the less people have the more generous they tend to be.

It's an over generalization. The other way the story goes is that the big house with the long driveway in my neighborhood is the one that gave out king sized candy bars on Halloween.

Considering the origin of trick-or-treating and Halloween customs, that carefree night of fun for kids sounds more like a protection racket.

They're doing a great job of "protecting" themselves from feeling anxious about Bad Things somehow happening.

For an all-too-large fraction of humanity, that's the "protection" which actually matters.

And of course, the gated communities have 6 ft high walls that any 8 yr old could climb over.

My townhouse HOA decided it was totally worth money to replace our fob system with a system that's deliberately incompatible with Homelink. They claimed without evidence that used car sales were a severe security risk.

Nevermind that you can wave any conductor under the gate to trigger the egress wire loop sensor, or just wait a minute or two for someone else to go through. From 6AM to 10PM the other gate is simply open, too.

Now I have to pay more for crappier fobs with worse range. It's deeply disappointing.