In this article we analyze gated communities as a nexus of social and spatial relations within the context of urban inequality. We apply Tickamyer's (2000) sociological framework for incorporating space into the study of inequality, which allows us to substantiate the arguments that the process of gating increases urban inequality. The contributions of this article are three: (1) We generate a new systematic theoretical approach toward the study of gated communities, which we consider as middle range theory; (2) We argue that gated communities reproduce the existing levels of social stratification and that they also define a new, permanent differentiation order in the spatial organization of cities in the United States (in this respect we also arrive at six hypotheses, which can be tested in future research); (3) We introduce the term "gating machine," where the combination of the interests and actions of local governments, real estate developers, the media, and consumers suggest that prevailing structural conditions assure the future proliferation of gated communities."Welcome to the Sonoran Desert, home of Trilogy at Vistancia. In this pristine setting you will find a gated, private community that will nourish the soul, comfort the heart and excite the imagination." Trilogy Resort Communities by Shea Homes Website (2007)
I examine the link between gated communities and residential segregation. I hypothesize that gating and segregation are defined by similar mechanisms, thus reinforcing urban inequality in U.S. cities. The results, however, indicate a more complex relationship. On the one hand, there are common mechanisms behind the two processes: the pursuit of higher property values, fear of crime, and fear of increased social heterogeneity. An increase in percent recent immigrants leads to higher levels of both segregation and gating. On the other hand, factors such as region, percent black, percent Hispanic, percent college graduates, and functional specialization affect the two processes differentially. Although segregation is less pronounced and declining in the U.S. urban Southwest, gated communities are much more prominent there. The results challenge the notion that the declines in residential segregation in recent decades indicate social progress.
Housing prices being one factor thought to contribute to segregation patterns, this article aims at differentiating gated communities from non-gated communities in terms of change in property values. To what extent do gated communities contribute to price filtering of residents, and do patterns of price differentiation favor gated communities in the long run? The article provides an analysis of the territorial nature of gated communities and how the private urban-governance realm theoretically sustains the hypothesis that property values within gated communities are better protected. In order to identify price patterns across time, we elaborate a spatial analysis of values (price distance index) by identifying gated communities with real estate listings in 2008 and matching these with historical data at the normalized census-tract level from the 1980, 1990 and 2000 census in the greater Los Angeles region. We conclude that gated communities are very diverse in kind. The wealthier the area, the more it contributes to fuelling price growth, especially in the most highly desired locations in the region. Furthermore, a dual behavior emerges in areas with an over-representation of gated communities. On the one hand, gated communities are located within local contexts that introduce greater heterogeneity and instability in price patterns. In this way, they contribute to a local increase in price inequality that destabilizes price patterns at neighborhood level. On the other hand, gated communities proliferate in contexts that show a very strong stability in terms of price homogeneity at the local level.
Suburbanization has been a prominent urban process in the United States since the World War II. It has transformed American cities in profound ways in every single aspect of urban development; from population and wealth distributions, through political organization and affiliations, to the built environment. This paper investigates the link between gated communities and the process of suburbanization in the context of socio-economic inequality. It has been shown time and again in the scholarly literature on suburbanization, that suburban neighborhoods in American cities have been traditionally more affluent and less diverse than central cities. The research on gated communities in the US also shows that they are, on average, more affluent compared to other communities in terms of family income and housing values. Are gated communities then simply a new form of suburban communities? Is the gated community in fact a suburban community with the added element of security features? The paper investigates these questions based on segregation and spatial analyses. The research contributes to the long line of studies on suburbanization, gating and the larger issues of urban inequality.
A long-standing and unresolved issue in the study of racial and ethnic groups concerns the persistence of initial inequalities among groups. Recently it has surfaced again in the study of U.S. immigrant groups, in George Borjas's (1994) claim that the human capital differences among early-twentieth-century immigrant groups are reflected in the relative socioeconomic achievements of their third generations. Reexamining this claim, we find that Borjas's analysis hinges on a series of problematic decisions, such as his inclusion of non-European groups as well as his failure to take ethnically mixed ancestry into account and to compensate for the weak correspondence in eastern Europe between ethnic ancestry and the national frontiers of the early 1900s. We replicate a portion of his analysis, correcting for these problems. Our results reveal no correspondence between the literacy of the first generation and the educational attainment of the third among European groups. Borjas's analysis seems to go farthest astray in including non-Europeans, especially Mexicans, because of the more systematic legal and social liabilities suffered by these groups.
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