97th Annual Meeting
February 27 – March 3, 2001
New York
Panel: Gated Communities
Chair: Klaus Frantz and Stanley D. Brunn
Harri Andersson, Department of Geography, University of Turku, FIN-20014 Turku, Finland. E-MAIL: harri.andersson@utu.fi
Gated City Center: Controlling the Public Realm.
The spatial form of a city is the outcome of a variety of social, economic and political processes, and the factors contributing to it serve to depict certain historical situations which are part of a larger social reality and will explain the changes which have taken place in the urban area at particular moments in time. City centres yield examples of physical and social environments which have been created at different periods in time and under different historical conditions. Business environments in city centers reflect the dominant social and political values and the economic circumstances in which they are taking place. They also are very sensitive to control the public realm using different kind of surveillance systems. This paper focuses on existing practices (success and failures) and future development of business activities and gated urban environments. The development of business activities in city centers will require urban environmemnts, which should be safe for consumers as well as business itself. In many European cities the improvement of business environments has successfully created new urban areas by opening run-down parts of the city centers, but at the same time producing ‚new gates™ by strong control systems. This paper will also ask ‚how far the security oriented redevelopment can go without loosing the social meaning of traditional city center.
Keyword: urban redevelopment, business improvement, gated city centers.
Martin Coy, Department of Geography, University of Tuebingen, Hoelderlinstrasse 12, 72074 Tuebingen,
Germany. E-MAIL: martin.coy@uni-tuebingen.de
Gated Communities in Latin American Megacities: Case Studies in Brazil and Argentina.
Within recent years the expansion of gated communities has become an increasingly important element in the changing Latin American megacities and their suburban areas. In this paper, the internal structure and differentiation as well as sociospatial consequences are discussed based on case studies from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires. The increasing fortification of the privileged is a visible consequence of the continuing intensification of social disparities and spatial fragmentation. Gated communities in Latin American cities are generally planned as a whole by project developers and designed with sophisticated security measures; they can be classified according to their location as inner city and suburban types. They represent an especially dynamic real estate product with a high return of capital. Public control has, by far, less relevance than the private interests. Gated communities can be seen as isnew extraterritorial spaces.lr Within recent years, particularly large edge-city-like projects have emerged in suburban areas. The successes of gated communities can mainly be accounted for by the fear of crime. AT the same time, they are an expression of the increasingly diverging lifestyles of urban society under the influence of globalization. With gated communities, new islands of wealth emerge in the ocean of poverty, a feature which characterizes the increasing fragmented structure of the Latin American city.
Keyword: social geography, Latin America, urban fragmentation.
Klaus J. Frantz, Department of Geography, Universität Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, AT. E-MAIL: Klaus.frantz@uibk.ac.at
Gated Communities in the USA – the Case of Metro-Phoenix.
In the last fifteen years the emergence of gated residential areas has become a mass trend in U.S. urban development. It is estimated that more than eight million people live in these communities today. Throughout the country they have changed the urban landscape as well as suburban landscape and its flexible lifestyle. In the U.S. these communities are mostly privately built, and they are maintained by a homeowner association and its hired staff. They are fenced or walled off and the residents are often additionally protected by a privately organized neighborhood watch, professional security guards or high-tech surveillance systems. Gated communities are one element in American cities that reflect the increasing polarization, fragmentation and diminishing solidarity within urban society and the progressive trend towards privatization of urban services. The research was carried out in Phoenix AZ, an urban conglomerate of twenty-three cities and 2.8 million residents. In order to obtain first-hand statistical material and information, an attempt was made to map all the gated communities of Metro-Phoenix and record the total population. In addition, numerous interviews were carried out with residents of these fortified enclaves, with developers, homebuildings, real estate agents, security people, and other professionals, as well as representatives of homeowner associations, to obtain qualitative data. Analysis of these data reveals who lives there and why, and sheds light on questions such as why these gated communities are built and how they are managed and maintained.
Keyword: U.S. cities, segregation, privatization.
Georg Glasze, Department of Geography, Universität Mainz, D-5509 Mainz, Germany. E-MAIL: g.glasze@geo.uni-mainz.de
Enclaves of Well-Being: Gated Housing Estates in Lebanon as Private Small Scale Solutions for Nationwide Problems.
The Institute of Geography in Mainz has initiated a research project to analyze the driving forces behind new gated housing estates in the Arab World and the social consequences that emerge. I present results from Lebanon which are based on several hundred standardized interview with inhabitants of gated settlements and more than seventy qualitative interviews with actors of the private and public sectors. The fieldwork was completed by mapping all the projects in Lebanon, analyzing their architecture, the advertisements, public and private regulations as well as observing the lifestyle in these settlements. On one hand there are some precursors in Lebanon, for example, hotels that were turned into co-ownership resorts during the civil war. On the other hand, especially in the postwar period, it became clear how returning expatriates imported architectural ideas and related lifestyles. Sources are the apartment compounds and gated communities in North and South America as well as the compounds of the western and Levantine working force in Saudi Arabia. In the Lebanese context, these enclaves of well-being, fill the gap left by an insufficient supply of public goods and weak public regulations. The reliable availability of water and electricity, the presence of security services and the availability of green spaces constitute private solutions and answers. However, one must ask to what degree does satisfying the needs of inhabitants diminish their motivation to participate in civic processes in order to achieve solutions to a nationwide scale?
Keyword: gated communities, urban geography, Arab world.
Rita Raposo, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão, Universidade Téchnica de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
E-MAIL: rraposo@iseg.utl.pt
Gated Communities in Portugal: A Case Study of Lisbon Metropolitan Area.
While introducing a sketch of how gated communities generally developed in Portugal, this presentation will specifically focus on the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, where the largest concentration in the country can be found. The purpose is to describe the main features, types and locations of gated communities within that area as well as to give an outline for the reasons why gated communities have developed. Several research methods and techniques are used: observation, analysis of legal regulations of land use, building and ownership; analysis of demographic, spatial, social, and economic data as well as housing and real estate statistical and qualitative data; content analysis of sales and marketing brochures and advertisements, and finally, interviews with several social and economic actors. The mapping and characterization of the phenomenon relies upon different sources such as newspapers, local councils and real estate developers. The case study concludes with the presentation of the most important relations to be established between the phenomenon and the wider context of recent spatial, social and economic changes that are occurring in the area. The importance of the following phenomena is stressed; the decentralization of the people and activities within the metropolitan area; the extension of the urbanization process; the decline and privatization of public space; changing conditions and features of the real estate and housing sectors and markets; new patterns of social and spatial segregation; the social construction and the rise of new cultural values, models, attitudes and needs related to home environments (security, exclusivity, landscape, leisure, natural environment, social interaction, and community).
Keyword: gated communities, Portugal, Lisbon Metropolitan Area.
Ivan J. Townshend, Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta AB T1K 3M4.
E-MAIL: towni0@uleth.ca
Community and Well-being in the Urban Context: What™s Different about Age-
segregated Gated Communities?
Lasslett’s Theory of the Third Age (TTA) posits that demographic forces, which have led to new forms of organization of the life course, together with social, economic, and cultural change, have paved the way for elders in western societies to engage in unprecedented opportunities relating to the pursuit of well-being and self-actualization. This paper focuses on one of the geographical manifestations of the emergence of the Third Age, namely, the growth of age-segregated (often walled and gated) retirement villages within cities, and the way in which these developments may be linked to the TTA. These developments are conceptualized as potential opportunity fields for enhanced well-being and self-actualization by individuals seeking to (re)discover a sense of community in the urban context. An empirical analysis explores the multivariate structures of community in these villages in Calgary, Alberta and the way in which these structures contribute towards well- being and self-actualization. To begin to understand the uniqueness of these developments, these findings are contrasted with evidence from a separate study of Lethbridge, Alberta that examines the same relationships in a citywide context as well as more specifically for a number of distinctive social ecological areas. Findings point to very different forms and realization of community as well as to vary different community features or structures that contribute towards well-being and self-actualization.
Keyword: gated communities, elderly, urban social ecology.
Christopher J. Webster, Department of City and Regional Planning, Reader in City Planning, University of
Wales Cardiff, Cardiff UK, CG10 3WA. E-MAIL: Webster@cardiff.ac.uk
The Nature of the Neighborhood Firm.
Gated communities are global phenomena which challenge traditional assumptions about the city. Geographical and cognizant theories have to be developed to understand the behavior behind them and to predict their impact on city structure and welfare and to prescribe policy. This paper gives a thumbnail sketch of theories that have relevance for analyzing the emergence of privately governed neighborhood spaces and attempts to synthesize a spatial theory of the neighborhood firm. Gordon and Richardson call upon regional scientists to turn their attention to evolutionary economic explanations of new urban phenomena including proprietary communities. In this paper I attempt to draw together Alonso™s bid rent theory with Tiebout™s model of local public goods, Buchanan™s model of clubs and Coase™s theory of the firm. The focus is on the way neighborhood firms evolve in response to the transaction costs of creating and policing the informal and formal contracts that create successful neighborhoods. In so doing, I demonstrate that the spatial theory of clubs has new relevance in contemporary urban areas, the club dynamics underlying gated communities and traditional open neighborhoods are very similar, and the spread of proprietary neighborhoods and other related institutional innovations can be explained and predicted upon the basis of an analysis of neighborhood contracts. Keyword: proprietary communities, gated communities, firms.