In its modern form, a gated community is a form of residential community containing controlled entrances for pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles, and sometimes characterised by a closed perimeter of walls and fences. Gated communities usually consist of small residential streets and include various amenities. For smaller communities this may be only a park or other common area. For larger communities, it may be possible for residents to stay within the community for most day-to-day activities. Gated communities are a type of common interest development, but are distinct from intentional communities. In countries with a low Human Development Index and/or high Gini coefficient, gated communities provide genuine security to the upper class as well as expatriates.^{citation needed}

Though they are called communities, there is no evidence to suggest that social capital is any higher within them than other forms of residential development. Given that they are spatially a type of enclave, they are more likely to have negative contributions to the overall social capital of the broader community.^[1]

Some gated communities, usually called guard-gated communities, are staffed by private security guards and are often home to high-value properties, or set up as retirement villages. Some gated communities are secure enough to resemble fortresses.

Amenities

The amenities available depend on many factors including location, demographic composition, and community structure. If there are sub-associations that belong to master associations, the master association may provide many of the amenities. In general, the larger the association the more amenities that can be provided. Amenities depend on the type of housing. For example, single-family-house communities may not have a common-area pool, since the individual owners may want their own pools; whereas a condominium may offer a pool, since the individual units generally cannot have their own pools.

Typical amenities offered can include one or more

• Swimming pools
• Tennis courts
• Community centres or clubhouses
• Golf courses
• Marina
• On-site dining
• Playgrounds
• Exercise rooms including workout machines
• Hot tubs

A worldwide phenomenon

In Brazil, the most widespread form of gated community is called "condomínio fechado" (closed housing estate) and is the object of desire of the upper classes. Such a place is a small town with its own infrastructure (backup power supply, sanitation, and security guards). The purpose of such a community is to protect its residents from outside violence. The same philosophy is seen on closed buildings and most shopping centers (many of them can only be accessed from inside the parking lot or the garage).

Protective 'spikes' help ensure the safety of residents living in 'security-zone' communities

In Panama, people buy houses inside of them because of the increased security, mainly in big cities. The majority of these gated communities are built for the middle and upper middle classes. They are preferred from condos and apartments because of lower community payment, higher feelings of privacy, and lower house prices.^{citation needed}

In Argentina, they are called "barrios privados" (literal translation "private neighborhoods") or just "countries" and are often seen as a symbol of wealth. However, gated communities enjoy dubious social prestige (many members of the middle and middle upper class regard gated community dwellers as nouveaux riches or snobs^[2]). While most gated communities have only houses, some bigger ones, such as Nordelta,^[3] have their own hospital, school, shopping mall, and more. In recent years, this influx of people going from the big cities to the gated communities has experienced a backlash in Argentina. Visiting Buenos Aires, the renewed geographer and urbanist Jordi Borja from Spain who teaches urban planning at the University of Barcelona criticized gated communities calling them^[4] "the negation of cities". Architect and university professor Marcela Camblor, who heads the Urban Design Dept in Florida, USA^[5] told the La Nacion newspaper that "the gated communities experiment has failed", calling them "unsustainable from the economic, social, and now even energetic point of view".

In post-apartheid South Africa, gated communities have mushroomed in response to high levels of violent crime. South African gated communities are broadly classified as "security villages" (large-scale privately developed areas) or "enclosed neighborhoods"^{citation needed}. Some of the newest neighborhoods being developed are almost entirely composed of security villages, with a few isolated malls and other essential services (such as hospitals). A common mode of development of the security villages involves staking out a large land claim, building a high wall surrounding the entire zone, then gradually adding roads and other infrastructure^{citation needed}. In part, property developers have adopted this response to counter squatting, which local residents fear due to associated crime, and which often results in a protracted eviction process. Crime syndicates have been known to acquire property in some of these security villages to be used as a base for their operations within them^{citation needed}.

They are popular in southern China, namely the Pearl River Delta Region (See Clifford Estates, Panyu, China). These communities are often purchased by overseas Chinese, Hong Kong Chinese, and new-rich local Chinese^{citation needed}.

In Saudi Arabia, gated communities have existed since the discovery of oil, mainly to accommodate Westerners and their families. After threat levels raised since the late 1990s against Westerners in general and Americans in particular, gates have become armed, sometimes heavily, and all vehicles have been inspected. Marksmen and SANG armored vehicles appeared in certain times, markedly after recent terrorist attacks in areas nearby, targeting Westerners.

Analysis

Real estate developers build gated communities to appeal to buyers' desire for security and prestige.

Physical walls, in some cases fortified and surveiled, give the inhabitants a sense of security. Some sociologists have criticized the creation of these types of walls as fortressing and have compared them to historical fortifications.

Another criticism is that gated communities offer a false sense of security. Some studies indicate that safety in gated communities may be more illusion than reality, showing that gated communities have no less crime than non-gated neighborhoods.^[6] In addition, bicycle and pedestrian connectivity are often greatly impaired by gated communities.

Common economic model types

• Lifestyle — country clubs, retirement developments.
• Prestige — gates for status appeal
• Security zone communities — gates for crime and traffic.
• Purpose-designed communities - catering to foreigners (ie. worker compounds in the Middle East, built largely for the oil industry)

In fiction

• J.G. Ballard has examined the phenomenon in his novel Super-Cannes and in his novella Running Wild.
• T. C. Boyle's novel The Tortilla Curtain is also set in and near a gated community in California.
• Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash depicts a future where gated communities are mass-produced by franchising systems and operate as sovereign city-states known as "burbclaves."
• The novel Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler takes place in a world where much of civilization lives within gated communities.
• The book and film adaptations of The Stepford Wives take place inside an idyllic city-state that secretly enslaves its female members to conform to the standards of the men.
• The Snowman and Crake characters of Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood live and work in corporate-owned gated communities known as Compounds.
• In the Season Six episode of The X-Files entitled "Arcadia," Mulder and Scully investigate disappearances within a gated community that seems to be harboring a terrible secret.
• In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode Squidville, Squidward temporarily moves to a gated community of squids.
• In one episode of Veggietales, Larry sings a song about gated communities in Silly Songs with Larry.
• In Argentina, Claudia Piñeiro's Las viudas de los jueves (Thursday Widows) became a local best seller after winning the 2005 edition of El Clarín newspaper book award.^[7] The novel depicts life of dwellers of a gated community, among them, families who enjoyed high incomes now facing economic hardships.
• Mexican film La zona, directed by Rodrigo Plá, talks about a gated community invaded by a group of very young and poor children.
• In the ABC Family movie "Picture This", Drew lives in a gated community called Camelot.

References

See also

• Private community
• Homeowners association

Further reading

• Edward J. Blakely and Mary Gail Snyder; Fortress America: Gated Communities in the United States; Brookings Institution Press, New Ed edition (June 15, 1999); ISBN 978-0815710035
• Arizaga, Maria Cecilia: El Mito de comunidad en la Ciudad Mundializada. ISBN 987-9035-28-3
• Arizaga, Maria Cecilia: Murallas y barrios cerrados, La morfología espacial del ajuste en Buenos Aires. Nueva Sociedad, 166, 2000.[2]
• Low, Setha M: Behind the Gates: Life, Security and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America. Routledge: New York and London: 2003.

External links

• Built Metaphors: Gated Communities and Fiction, by Stéphane Degoutin and Gwenola Wagon
• Gated communities as an urban pathology?, by Renaud Le Goix
• The Privatization of Urban Space: Gated Communities - A New Trend in Global Urban Development?
• Land Use and Design Innovations in Private Communities
• China's Transition at a Turning Point
• Forbes: Most Expensive Gated Communities In America 2004
• Fortress Bulgaria: gated communities