Gated Communities

Abstract

Gated communities are enclosed residential subdivisions, privately operated under contractual agreements between homeowners, yielding an interlocking of access control, legal arrangements, and social interactions. Built as morphological enclaves with physical enclosures and security features, they are also designed to exclude others: property rights are implemented in property owners associations, the private governance structures regulating the selection of residents based on age, lifestyle, or social preferences. Gated neighborhoods are therefore viewed as securitization strategies for the subset of the public who seek comfort in social homogeneity.

The suburbs as sites of ‘within-planning’ power relations

“…This includes seeking out or developing neighbourhoods of similar middle-class individuals (Tonkiss 2006), and vertical gating (Rykwert 2004;Le Goix & Webster 2008) which can provide a similar detachment from neighbourhood as horizontal gating in the suburbs. These developments are often associated with the 'mass' or commercial gentrification of the city.…”