Gated Community

Spatial and Economic Security

Gated communities in the United States go directly back to the latter half of the 19th century—the era of the robber barons—when the very richest built private streets to seal themselves off from the working class. Later, during the 20th century, more gated, fenced compounds emerged to serve the needs of the East Coast and Hollywood movie and auto aristocracies. These early gated areas were very different from the gated subdivisions of today. Now, the merely affluent and even many members of the middle class can also have barriers. The first gated communities available to the mass market were master-planned retirement developments of the late 1960s and 1970s. Gated communities in their contemporary form emerged first in the American Sunbelt and remain most common there. However, they are now to be found chiefly in urban areas, primarily a phenomenon of metropolitan agglomerations and their racial and ethnic diversity. They are rarities in rural areas except in resort areas. Increasingly, gated areas are cropping up in metropolitan Australia and the coastal areas of Spain, Portugal, and France.

A Walled World

[Page 238]Gated communities are a response to the rising tide of fear. They can be classified into three main categories. First are the lifestyle communities, where gates provide security and separation for the leisure activities and amenities within. Lifestyle communities include retirement communities such as golf country clubs and resort developments. The gates of prestige communities symbolize distinction and high social status and attempt to create and protect a secure place on the social ladder. These include enclaves for the rich and famous, developments for those in the top fifth of wealth categories, and executive subdivisions. Finally, there are the security zones, where community safety is the primary goal. They may be center city or suburban, affluent or poor. In the first two categories, the developer builds gates and image as an amenity that helps sell houses. The third category includes cases in which residents build the gates, retrofitting their low-income neighborhoods to shield them from the outside world.

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