Probably not, but housing and construction are regulated pretty severely in general, and seem to attract a pedantic, bureaucratic mindset that has little to do with being the land of freedom par excellance. Buying a house is a mess of paperwork dedicated to distorting market realities; owning one can be similar. The very idea of homeowners' associations, with various bad-tempered members who have nothing better to do than look for violations, is a frightening one...
Homeowner's association exist to protect the common shared ownership of condominiums. If you don't want to deal with an HOA, buy a single family home instead or a large plot of land and then you're free to do whatever you'd like. There are definitely more nitpicky HOAs but generally you should do your research and find a community that shares your values when you invest in a multi-tenant property with shared common area ownership.
Neighborhoods of single family homes can also establish HOAs, and they can become hotbeds of covert aggression. I believe that the parent comment was referring to this scenario since it is easy to spy on neighborly behavior.
In the other places in the US that I've visited or lived in, similar situations happened (e.g. University owned housing vs private student housing in the exact same building treated very differently).
Perhaps one of the causes is that every place gets to make its own regulations, classifications etc. -- not just how to zone, but what zoning means, what categories there are, etc.