If you drive through SouthDown you'll see a number of sub-areas that each have a name and a theme of some sort. Golf Village (where we own), The Highlands, The Gables, The Meadows, etc.
You pay an association fee to Southdown, which covers the overall common areas (main roads, walking paths, beach, greenspace by the water, plowing, and so forth). There is a board for Southdown which also sets the major rules and regulations (eg: they are overly anal about golf carts for some reason), and then each village has its own board and finances.
For the most part the individual villages mostly deal with maintain aesthetics of their village, rental restrictions, any issues related to parking and so forth. There isn't a ton of latitude to go beyond the general Southdown policies. The biggest thing is the finances of each village. Some are very well funded and managed (Golf Village being one of these), others not so much. If you haven't purchased a condo before, you want to look out for things like are they accruing enough money for the "big" expenses (painting, roofing, paving), and also have there been lots of special assessments over the years. I believe that there are also some issues with mortgage qualification if the condo's finances are not secure, so you might want to check into that as well.
Overall we've been happy at Southdown for the 7 or so years we've been there. It's not "perfect", but IMO no association is because the nosy busybodies that have too much free time are the ones that seem to seek out the positions of pseudo-power (sorry if my biases show through
) But, I can't think of anything that has really been anything more than mildly irritating, and it's all things that we knew going in. We get ample use out of the marina and the overall grounds for walking the dogs and such. It's nice to be able to just go sit by the water, or walk through the local trails or do things that you don't have to leave the property to enjoy.
As an added bonus, Tavern27 is basically right outside Southdown and makes for an easy lunch or dinner getaway via golf cart.