Gated Communities

The flaw in this argument is that anyone for whom this actually holds true certainly can't afford to live in a gated community.

The reason people don't like them is because they are devisive, and don't seem to have been though through.

Tom, you forgot the other flaw in this one, the flaw that answers Dave's question: those of us outside the gates are annoyed by the presumption that the people inside are any less "distasteful and/or threatening" than the public at large.

(I.e., it plays averages with class: "let us create a gaurded mini- Republic of the equally-wealthy")

Very true. Kids in certain parts of Detroit sleep on the floor and not the bed and never learn how to ride a bicycle. Somehow I doubt this is the case in W. Bloomfield, where gated communities keep the citizens safe from the potential harms of the middleclass vermin who occasionally infiltrate the village limits.

So sez the legless cripple at least.

But it does have the helpful effect of keeping them in most of the time so I do not have to deal with their like.

Except at work (le sigh).

But seriously, I don't like gated communities because the ones I've seen wreck the landscape and destroy communities. These may exist in different forms elsewhere, but I've seen them as new developments bult into preexisting communities rather than as enclaves of settlement in otherwise "bad" areas (not to say I condone those but that's a different discussion). Gated communities in suburbia are the classic tragedy of the commons in that if everyone in the greater surrounding community built big ugly walls around their parts of town, the community would cease to be desireable to live in. The difference between gated communities and the walled gardens and mansions of the super-rich is the scale on which gated communities carve up the landscape and the ugly side-effects of the residents' attempts to ossify their class position. These efforts reach a critical mass at some point past which it's unpleasant to walk/bike/drive around them in a way that stand-alone residences aren't. It's like the residents are saying that they don't want any of that wall money to go to public education or public safety, which might tend to promote social mobility and thus threaten their class position. I know this goes on all the time at the voting booths, but this way impoverishes the built environment in the process.

anyone read this?

does anyone here live in a gated community, or, grown up in one? or even been inside one?

the mcmansion phenomenon, are these usually built in gated communities, or also ungateds?

ned, i can't get past the first few chapters. please tell me it gets better!

I live in an apartment building in an area where supposedly the crime is bad. We have a keypad-style security system, you punch in your combo or use a key to get in the lobby and everything has been quite secure so far but I think the crimes in this area are crimes of opportunity--car theft, muggings, etc and don't really bleed over into residential break-ins. Sometimes I wonder how my little keypad system is related to gated communities though. When we move to a house (in a much safer neighborhood) I know I'll be annoyed with solicitors and church folk and such. Some neighborhoods in st louis collect extra property tax and use the proceeds to buy extra security guards (off-duty police) for the area. Some have thought about putting camera systems up but I don't know how successful that's been. It's still the city though, I was in the suburbs last night and passed a series of roads marked 'private drive no thru traffic no trespassing'--it's very common in certain burbs, many of these private roads are over 50 years old. Only a few of them have actual gates or guards though.

it seems a familiar theme now, the sinister backdrop to suburbia, peel away the curtains, and all manner of weirdness lies behind. i guess films like stepford wives and nightmare in elm st are obvious, suburbia/weirdness events, but what about earlier than that?

the golden age of US suburbia seems to be popularly thought of as the 1950s? would you agree with that? it makes sense to me, at least. 1950s=symbol of utopia and escape, 1960s=symbol of staidness, 1970s=symbol of imagined sinisterness, 1980s=.....problems of rest of society gnawing at edge of suburbia?

i think its interesting that the (in film at least) the tarnished suburbia seemed to be shown first via surreal or unquantifiable dangers (stepford wives, elm st etc), before more prosaic concerns later on. though i guess thats actually a fairly common way of presenting fear and worry about life...

I suppose they both serve particular functions and there are enough people that want to live in places like these. You couldn't pay me enough.