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The Constitution And Private Government: Toward The Recognition Of Constitutional Rights In Private Residential Communities Fifty Years After Marsh V. Alabama, Steven Siegel

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article considers the application of the Supreme Court's state-action theory to residential commmunity associations (RCAs), a form of housing and community governance that has experienced extraordinary growth in recent years. Fewer than 500 RCAs were in existence in the United States before 1960. In the early 1990s, it was estimated that 32 million Americans lived in 150,000 RCAs. A continuing boom in RCA construction has led to predictions that twenty-five to thirty percent of Americans will be living in RCAs by early in the next century. Steven Siegel argues that this trend, although largely unnoticed, carries significant implications for …