The Edge and the Center: Gated Communities and the Discourse of Urban Fear

Abstract

Across America, middle‐class and upper‐middle‐class gated communities are creating new forms of exclusion and residential segregation, exacerbating social cleavages that already exist (Blakely and Snyder 1997; Higley 1995; Lang and Danielson 1997; Marcuse 1997). While historically secured and gated communities were built in the United States to protect estates and to contain the leisure world of retirees, these urban and suburban developments now target a much broader market, including families with children (Guterson 1992; Lofland 1998). This retreat to secured enclaves with walls, gates, and guards materially and symbolically contradicts American ethos and values, threatens public access to open space, and creates yet another barrier to social interaction, building of social networks, as well as increased tolerance of diverse cultural/ racial/social groups (Davis 1992;Devine 1996;Etzoni 1995; Judd 1995; McKenzie 1994). In this paper, I explore how the discourse of fear of violence and crime and the search for a secure community by those who live in gated communities in the United States legitimates and rationalizes class‐based exclusion strategies and residential segregation. I examine whether residents of cities experiencing increasing cultural diversity are fleeing neighborhoods because they have experienced a "loss of place" and therefore feel unsafe and insecure (Altaian and Low 1992). Some people are responding to this loss by choosing to buy into a defensive space, a walled and guarded community that they can call home, [gated communities, United States, urban fear]

Anthropological Critique and Framing of Suburban Enclaves: Case of Neighbourhood X

“…This concept of gated community, well-developed by Setha Low (2003), is also visible in the terms of surveyed locality. Low (2003) defines gated communities as household clusters, which share common security means (cameras, high walls, gates, and in some cases personal security) in order to acquire control.…”

“…First of all, the suburban migrants and their motivation, from the belletristic point of view, can be characterized as an exclusionary enclave, whose upper and middle class residents search for the sameness, status, and security in an ideal 'new town' or 'green oasis' (LOW 2003:390, LANGDON 1994, McKENZIE 1994. Geographical perspective, presented by Musterd and Lupi (2006), can be attached to this characterization by claiming that moving out of polluted and dense cityscapes with a significant rate of crime and poverty is the sign of social mobility.…”

“…Low (2003) defines gated communities as household clusters, which share common security means (cameras, high walls, gates, and in some cases personal security) in order to acquire control. In case of my research, this expression of material control occurred to a certain (limited) extent.…”

Inseguridad ciudadana y diferenciación social en el nivel microbarrial: el caso del sector Santo Tomás, Santiago de Chile

“…Así, el temor al delito no es siempre una respuesta al crimen, sino más bien una construcción sociocultural (Lupton, 1999). Esto es confirmado por Low (2001), quien realiza un estudio en dos barrios cerrados (uno en Los Ángeles y el otro en Nueva York) y establece que lo sustantivo es que el "discurso seguritario" está fundado en lógicas de exclusión social basadas en la clase y, por tanto, la inseguridad se instala en la forma en que se construye al "peligroso".…”

Urban policy and the rise of gated housing in post-socialist Poland

“…Researchers of North American cities were the very first to pay special attention to the phenomenon of gating (see, for instance, Blakely and Snyder 1997;Low 2001;McKenzie 1994). They set the agenda and gave the phenomenon a definition, emphasizing the public restriction to the housing area secured by fences, walls and gates that, to some degree, include common resources available only to the residents (Blakely and Snyder 1997: 2).…”