Thank you for that. Thanks to posts in this thread my original position on private roads has changed somewhat. It now appears to me that private roads can appear so long as there is some kind of governing body or person that can make the rules in advance so that people coming to live on the road have to sign a contract agreeing to the policies and payments for that road as a pre-condition to moving in. However this mechanism appears to lead (in the long run) to a very similar set of conditions that the anarchists so complain about with respect to government roads. i.e. the policy makers having the threat of physical force against non-payers and the residents having very unsatisfactory options with regard escaping the contracts.