GATED COMMUNITIES:
THE MARCH TOWARDS ISOLATION
Tanveer Islam
ARCU 4400 Section A
Professor Bruce Firestone
Cities play an important role in the development of society. They foster businesses that provide important products and services. They provide entertainment and leisure activities. More importantly, they allow interaction between people and a free exchange of ideas that result in a synergy that improves the standard of living of all citizens. A vibrant and inclusive city carries with it many benefits: greater diversity, a more tolerant environment, high levels of creativity, and a high level of engagement in civic life. Some of the economic benefits include: increased tax base from the presence of businesses and residential properties, a greater demand for goods and services as a result of higher densification and intensification, and a reduction in transportation costs commonly associated with urban sprawl.
Interestingly, over the past few decades, there has been a trend in housing development that contradicts the very same principles that makes cities vibrant, value-creating mechanisms. Called ‘gated communities’, this phenomenon entails the development of tightly guarded or ‘gated’ neighbourhoods that are located outside the borders of the city. Incoming traffic is closely monitored and often restricted. Citizens often can only access their neighbourhoods after swiping a ‘gate card’ or going through a number of security checkpoints located around the compound. Visitors are screened and parking is restricted to certain areas. There are surveillance cameras everywhere that monitor the compound at all hours to deter any type of criminal activity. In short, gated communities are small pockets of exclusivity where individuals go and isolate themselves from the perceived threat posed by the rest of society.
Gated communities have long been a part of American history. As early as the 19th century, wealthy individuals and retirees chose to form their own communities and live outside the perils associated with everyday society.[1] Nowadays, the ‘private neighbourhood’ is no longer restricted to the wealthy. Neighbourhoods in the middle classes have followed this trend of privatization and the results have been dramatic.[2] A 2001 survey by the Census Bureau revealed that around 7 million households, comprising close to 6% of the national total, are behind walls or fences.[3] This trend is expected to grow in the coming years.
One can’t help but question the motive behind individuals’ decision to distance themselves from the rest of society. Fear is the overwhelming answer given by most.[4] Since the mid-60s, the fear of crime among the majority of the population has increased. In reality, violent crimes have actually been decreasing since the 1980s.[5] This disparity between perception and reality can be largely blamed on the media. On any given day, the news coverage is inundated with stories of violence and crime. Isolated incidents are sensationalized so often that it distorts the public’s view on what is really happening in the real world. This culture of fear is largely responsible for the exodus of people to the suburbs and into gated communities.
Although this growing trend may
seem harmless to the average person, there are in fact, significant
implications for both individuals and society at large from the segmentation
that ensues from gated communities.
First of all, studies have shown that the level of health is deteriorating
in communities that are located far from the urban core. A 2003 study conducted by the
Contrary to popular myth, gated communities must also deal with security problems. It can even be argued that, in the long run, security might be a bigger issue inside gated communities than it is outside. Despite the myriad of security fences and video cameras that may exist, the system may still have flaws. For instance, security guards may be incompetent, surveillance equipment might malfunction, or a criminal may climb the wall or somehow obtain the gate code and gain access to the premises. It can be argued that there is no such thing as a ‘perfect security system’ and that any system will have some inherent flaws. However, inside gated communities, the bigger problems of security do not result from the malfunction of its security system. The threat emerges from its isolation. By choosing to live in ‘exclusive’ communities, residents make themselves vulnerable. The outside world is perfectly aware that there is a large accumulation of wealth inside these communities, as they are overwhelmingly populated by people from the upper and middle classes. Thus, in the long run, gated communities are more susceptible to crime. In her book, “The death and life or great American cities”, author Jane Jacobs argued that city streets and its sidewalks must continuously have a large number of users in order “to add to the number of effective eyes on the street”.[7] She went on to argue that isolated communities are “ideally suited to rape, muggings, beatings, hold-ups, and the like” because deserted streets and sidewalks are more likely to attract crime.[8] Thus, it is ironic that although people often move to gated communities for security reasons, in the long run, they may actually be increasing their risk to danger.
The most convincing argument against gated communities is not the negative impact it has on its residents in terms of health and security, but the implications for society at large. By segmenting society into ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, the social costs are drastic. Gated communities create a barrier for social interaction. As society is fragmented into small homogenous pockets, there is less interaction between people from different income, cultural, and social groups. Gated communities are predominantly occupied by white, middle to upper class individuals and families.[9] With less interaction between different groups, there is an immediate drop in tolerance and diversity. Furthermore, the problem of residential segregation persists and the income gap between the rich and poor widens even more.
Another negative impact of gated
communities is the reduction in social capital.
Social capital is a term
used to describe "features of social organization such as networks, norms,
and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual
benefit".[10] Society benefits from the interaction between
groups from different income classes.
When the rich and the poor meet in shared public spaces, the rich can
use the greater number of resources at their disposal to improve the level of
services for everyone.[11] However,
social capital as a whole decreases when they move to gated communities. With increased privatization, residents
inside gated communities tend to focus on the needs of their particular
neighborhood. Although there is greater
involvement at the community level to address local needs, there is less social
involvement at the city level.[12] Greater socio-political issues such as
employment, eroding infrastructure, and lack of health services will be second
to more ‘pressing’ issues such as crime in the local area, property values,
etc. The ‘community’ becomes the
paradigm through which residents in gated neighborhoods view the world. This narrow-minded perception limits their
civic engagement to a select few issues, while ignoring those that are relevant
to all citizens.
In addition to
the erosion in social and political life, gated communities create a financial
burden for the government. Although
these communities are mostly located outside the city, its residents still
require many essential services such as fire services, policing, construction
and maintenance of roads, garbage pickup, etc.
Providing these services is very costly as the remote location and small
population of gated communities prevent the city from taking advantage of
economies of scale. Another financial
burden lies in the area of taxation.
Since most homeowners inside gated communities pay user fees to their
local homeowner association for things like security, upgrading of facilities,
etc., they are less willing to contribute their tax dollars for publicly
provided services. They may view this as
a form of “double taxation”.[13] In fact, many homeowner associations have
successfully lobbied the government for subsidies and tax relief to “reimburse
them for provision of public services”.[14] If this trend continues, the long-term impact
on the urban tax base may be considerable.
Gated
communities essentially privatize community space. Many go even further and privatize civic
responsibilities like education, entertainment, recreation, and policing.[15] The new development creates an exclusive
niche that shares little with the surrounding community. The results are: lower levels of mixing and
interaction between different groups of people, decreased synergy, and negative
economic repercussions.
Synergy can be
defined as the “working together of distinct elements that “produce an effect
greater than the sum of the individual parts.”[16] This ‘distinctness’ that is a precursor to
synergy can only be achieved through greater levels of diversity. If properly harnessed, ‘distinctness’ or ‘difference’
are forces that sparks creativity.
Synergy is less inherent in homogenous groups where every member shares
similar characteristics.
Low levels of
interaction between different groups of people reduce synergy and sap economic
strength. When people isolate themselves
from the rest of society, their actions will only impact those in their
immediate area. The elite (which
comprise of the majority of people inside gated communities) will generally use
civic engagement to further or protect their own interests. The people outside the gated communities
(i.e. the rest of society) reap little or no benefit. The impact to society at large is small or
even non-existent.
In conclusion,
it is quite clear that the social costs of gated communities outweigh the
benefits that are enjoyed by the few.
The health of neighborhoods depends on interaction between people of all
races, cultures, and economic backgrounds.
The income disparity between the rich and the poor is already
considerable. Gated communities compound
the problem even more. When people erect barriers between themselves and their
neighbors, there is less of a chance that the surrounding area will improve in
quality. Gated communities threaten
civic engagement and compound many of the problems that society faces
today. Its robust growth in recent years
is both surprising and also of great concern.
More should be done to educate the public on this issue and dissuade
those wishing to pursue this route of exclusivity and isolation.
http://www.dramatispersonae.org/EnterpriseOfTheCity/HomePage/EnterpriseOfTheCityFrontPage.htm
[1] Kennedy, David J. "Residential Associations as State Actors: Regulating the Impact of Gated Communities on Non-Members." Yale Law Journal 105, no. 3 (December 1995): 761-93.
[2] Champlin, Dell: “The privatization of community: implications for urban policy”, Journal of Economic Issues, 32 no2 595-603 Je ‘98
[3] El Nasser, Haya: “Gated
Communities more popular”, USA Today (
[4] Low, Setha M. “The edge and the center”, 2000
[5] Colvard, Karen “Crime Is Down? Don't Confuse Us with the Facts”. The HFG Review 2(1):19-26, 1997
[6] Stein, Rob: “ The nation’s obesity crisis”, Miami Herald, (
[7] Jacobs, Jane: “The death and
life of great American cites”.
[8] Jacobs, Jane: “The death and
life of great American cites”.
[9] Low, Setha M. “The edge and the center”, 2000
[10] Putnam, Robert D.
"Bowling Alone:
[11] Hari, Johann: “Barbarians
build the barricades”, The New Statemesman, (
[12] Champlin, Dell: “The privatization of community: implications for urban policy”, Journal of Economic Issues, 32 no2 595-603 Je ‘98
[13] Champlin, Dell: “The privatization of community: implications for urban policy”, Journal of Economic Issues, 32 no2 595-603 Je ‘98
[14] Dilger, Robert Jay. "Residential Community Associations." Public Management 76, no. 4 (April 1994): 3
[15] http://t062.cpla.cf.ac.uk/wbimages/gci/main.html
[16] http://www.freeedictionary.com