Fifty researchers
from four continents discussed one of the most urgent problems of current urban
development at the Conference on “Private Urban Governance” June
5 to 9: Are more and more cities being splitted up into private, guarded enclaves
and a neglected rest? What are the economic, social and cultural causes of this
so-called “fragmentation of the cities”? What consequences can be
observed?
The conference at the Institute of Geography at the University of Mainz (Germany)
was supported by the German Research Fund (DFG).
Abstracts
1a
The US Experiences: Private Urban Governance in the USA
Chair: Klaus Frantz
Fred E. Foldvary (Santa Clara): Private Governance as Explicit Contracts among Legal Equals
The difference
between a government and a private community is not in the goods provided. The
public goods provided by both are similar. The structures of community associations
are also similar to those of democratically elected governments. What places
a community organization in the private sector rather than in the government
sector is an explicit contract among members with an equal legal status. In
contrast, governments impose laws and costs on the members of a community without
the explicit consent of all the adult members, and the governing officials are
legally superior in having some degree of immunity from lawsuits. The economic
theory of clubs presumes such contractual equals. Whereas the conventional market-failure
doctrine presumes that markets and governments are distinct, clubs provide market-based
governance services to their members in the provision of public goods.
The public goods provided by territorial clubs generate a site rental that creates
the means to pay for the goods, and the rental also signals the optimal provision
where the marginal rentals and marginal costs are equal. Private urban governance
can therefore efficiently provide and finance declining-cost public goods with
marginal-cost pricing and fixed costs funded by the site rentals. This is indeed
how hotels, shopping centers, and homeowner associations generally operate.
Private communities also overcome the rent-seeking that uses government to transfer
wealth to special interests. Because they are contractual, the incentive with
private communities is benefit-based financing, rather than the ability-to-pay
method used by governments that can impose policy. This is demonstrated by case
studies in the U.S., including the Arden land trust, private neighborhoods in
St. Louis, the Reston Association, the Fort Ellsworth condominium, and Walt
Disney World. Private communities therefore provide more efficient financing
as well as a more competitive provision of services, more use of dispersed knowledge,
and more choice for residents and consumers.
Evan McKenzie (Chicago): Private Residential Governance in
the USA: Why is it happening and what does it mean?
Privately governed residential enclaves known as common interest housing developments
(CIDs), about one-fifth of them gated and walled, are the predominant form of
new housing in the USA’s fastest growing cities and suburbs. Over the
last 30 years, this massive privatization of local government functions, consisting
of over 230,000 housing developments containing almost one-sixth of the nation’s
population, has changed the appearance and organizational structure of American
urban areas. CID housing has become the predominant form of new housing construction
in America. About one-third of the housing constructed in the USA since 1970
has been in CIDS, and in many metro areas more than half the housing is in CIDS.
Common interest housing includes planned developments of single family homes,
townhouses, and condominiums. These developments involve a form of ownership
in which home buyers purchase both an individual interest in a particular unit
and another interest, consisting often of streets, recreation centers, golf
courses, and other facilities, which they own in common with all residents in
the development. They buy their property subject to voluminous sets of deed
restrictions, rules, and regulations, under which all owners agree to make monthly
payments to a homeowner association, a private government into which all residents
are enlisted at the moment of purchase. The association is run by the residents,
supported by cadres of lawyers and other professionals, and it enforces the
deed restrictions against all residents and manages the use of property and
other aspects of life in the development. Increasingly, CID housing involves
homeowner association-administered security measures, which typically include
walls and gates, and may involve hiring guards and even private police forces.
Two of the most important issues are: first, why it is happening; and second,
how we should conceptualize it.
I argue that the CID revolution is driven by the motivations of developers and
local governments on the supply side, and consumers on the demand side, with
the supply side interests predominating over the demand side.
How should we understand the fact that CID housing is the predominant form of
new housing ownership in America’s fastest growing areas? I consider the
institution in light of two staples from the conceptual apparatus of liberal
democratic theory: the so-called “private-public distinction,” and
the state/market/civil society sectoral analysis. I argue that the best way
to fit CID housing into these twin frameworks is to use fuzzy set theory. I
then describe eight different interpretations for the rise of CID housing that
emerge from the literature. I conclude by arguing that in many parts of the
USA the rise of CID housing is best viewed as an extension of state authority.
Richard Briffault (New York): Protecting Public Interests in
the Private City
With more than 40 million Americans—roughly one-sixth of the population—living
in common interest developments (“CIDs”), courts and scholars have
struggled with the place of CIDs in the legal landscape. In providing services,
collecting assessments, regulating a range of activities within their boundaries,
and electing their own managing bodies, they resemble cities. But legally they
are private developments, resulting from private contracts not municipal incorporation.
Indeed, CIDs are one of a number of local-level institutions—including
business improvement districts and charter schools—which blur the traditional
distinction between public and private and raise questions about the public
accountability of local decision-makers who wield quasi-public power. The debate
about CIDs is often framed in terms of whether they are “state actors”
for constitutional purposes, so that constitutional norms applicable to local
governments—due process, free speech, equal protection, the “one
person, one vote” rule—would extend to CIDs. The state action doctrine
is a murky one that provides little guidance for legal analysis, and courts
have generally avoided treating CIDs as state actors. Rather, the trend in case
law has been to emphasize the private nature of CIDs. Other, and potentially
more promising, legal avenues for reconciling the formally private legal nature
of CIDs with their public implications include state statutory regulation and
common law property doctrines. Although states traditionally have given little
attention to CIDs, in recent years a number of states have debated or adopted
laws that extend public norms to some aspects of CID governance. In other states,
common law doctrines applying public concerns to the use of private property
provide a basis for public oversight of CID decisions. This paper examines recent
trends in state legislative and judicial regulation of CIDs and suggests that
statutory and common law-based judicial actions have the potential to protect
some aspects of the public interests, particularly the interests of CID residents,
in CID governance.
Setha Low (New York): Unlocking the Gated Community: Moral
Minimalism and Social (Dis)order in Gated Communities in the United States and
Mexico
This paper outlines a sequence of theoretical and empirical findings from anthropological
and sociological studies that help to explain the emergence of private urban
governance and gating in the United States. Data drawn from a qualitative study
of residents living in gated communities in New York and Texas will illustrate
the theoretical points. Private urban governance of gated communities has grown
out of a series of socio-historical legal and spatial arrangements within the
United States. The gated community is an example of a new form of social ordering
called “spatial governmentality.” It focuses on concealing or displacing
offensive people or activities rather then eliminating them. Social order is
produced by creating zones where the protected group is shielded from others’
behavior. Constance Perin pointed out over twenty years old that Americans were
using land use controls for symbolic and social ends. This new system of socio-spatial
regulation promotes safety for the privileged few by excluding those who are
considered dangerous, and diminishes the scope of collective responsibility
for producing social order characteristic of the modern state. Urban and suburban
spatial separation in the United States has a long history based on racism.
Cities continue to experience high levels of residential segregation based on
discriminatory real estate practices and mortgage structures designed to insulate
Whites from Blacks. Since the 1980s there has been a pattern of hyper- segregation
in the suburbs, reinforced by patterns of residential mobility by race in that
Blacks are less likely to move to the suburbs in the first place, and then more
likely to return to the city. Middle class and upper middle class neighborhoods
also exhibit a pattern of class segregation by building fences, cutting off
relationships with neighbors, and moving out in response to internal problems
and conflicts. Sally Merry documents how the state has expanded its regulatory
role through zoning laws, local police departments, ordinances about dogs, quiet
laws, and laws against domestic and interpersonal violence that provide new
forms of segregation of family and neighborhood life. Thus, class and racial
segregation is reinforced by planning, policing, and spatial practices, and
implemented by zoning laws and regulations. The gated community is an extension
of these practices. The creation of common interest formations (CIDs) provided
a legal framework for the consolidation of residential segregation. Common interest
development describes “a community in which the residents own or control
common areas or shared amenities,” and that “carries with it reciprocal
rights and obligations enforced by a private governing body”. Specialized
covenants, contracts, and deed restrictions that extend forms of collective
private land tenure and the notion of private government were adapted by the
lawyer and planner Charles Stern Ascher to create the modern institution of
the homeowner association. Private land use controls in the United States are
not new, but there is a trend away from governmental control over land use toward
an increased reliance on privately created controls. The shift in the zoning
process a from publicly debated and voter-enacted system to a privately imposed
system may be far more restrictive than any state statute or local ordinance.
Gated communities and their use of CIDs legal restrictions are instituting an
extreme expression of the American dream.
1b The US Experiences: Private Urban Governance in the USA
Chair: Setha Low
Renaud
Le Goix (Paris): Gated communities in Southern California: assessing
the geographical aspects of an urban secession
This paper aims to study the impact of gated communities within the large metropolitan
area of Los Angeles and its vicinity. We focus on communities with strong security
and access-control features, where 24h guarded gates prevent from public access.
In the most recently urbanized areas, especially in the fast growing cities
of the Southern and Western states such as Los Angeles, they represent up to
30% of the new homes market: they have thus become a symbol of the metropolitan
fragmentation and of the increase of social segregation. They not only build
an enclosure but they also operate a selection of residents, through the enforcement
of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions. The research specifically addresses
the spatial discontinuity between the gated communities and their vicinities,
which is produced by the social enclosure. This discontinuity will be discussed
as the specificity of the communities compared to the neighboring areas, through
a study of the impact of gated communities over social, ethnic and property
values patterns. This impact will also be assessed through the relevant political
and legal issues. The study is being developed in three steps. First of all,
the location of gated communities within the metropolitan area must be discussed
in term of location utility, because most of them are located on the urban edge,
and operate location choices that fit the segregation patterns. Relevant methodological
aspects focus on the implementation of a database (Geographical Information
System) of 250 gated communities (location and characteristics) in Los Angeles,
and its integration with 1990 and 2000 census data. In a second part, the local
impact of fading boundaries between public and private management are discussed.
Gated Communities are becoming local political influent actors. Such confusion
between public and private is especially relevant to understand the nature of
the territories built by gated communities, when considering their incorporation
as brand new municipalities (more than 13 gated communities in 40 years). So,
Gated Communities are taking part to a trend of local political secessions,
in order to protect one’s investment. At last, we assess the level of
discontinuity produced by those secessionist neighborhoods. For instance, the
enclosure, much more than the Property Owner Association governance, contributes
to protect the real-estate investment from market fluctuations. In Los Angeles,
property values in large gated communities have shown a better resistance during
the 1992-1996 real market crisis than in regular residential areas settled in
the immediate neighborhood.
Stéphane Degoutin (Paris): NO-GO AREAS vs. “NOGOLAND”
in the USA
The traditional forms of public spaces have almost completely disappeared from
the American megalopolises (except on the East Coast). Private police watch
over these new “private public spaces”, having the possibility to
filter access and reject the “undesirable” persons. Contrary to
the traditional city, that mixes the social strata, the contemporary American
city is divided into different networks which may be geographically mixed, yet
are socially separated. To schematise : - On the one hand, what I call “Nogoland”:
territories excluded from the public realm by their own inhabitants’ choice:
gated communities, theme parks, malls, office campuses etc. On the other hand,
the no-go areas: forbidden territories, dangerous districts, ethnical ghettos.
According to Hakim Bey (in «The no-go zone»), «Zones which
have been economically abandoned […] will gradually be eliminated from
all other networks controlled by the spectacle of the state, including the final
interface, the Police. […] The consuming classes will leave these areas
and move “elsewhere”.» This opposition is particularly explicit
in Philadelphia’s downtown. Most of the buildings have been linked together
by footbridges at the second floor level, forming a continuous network giving
access to shops, offices and parking. The network is air conditioned and patrolled
by a private police. The street underneath, which used to be the place of public
life, is now frequented only by the homeless. The traditional societies relied
on the “exploitation” of the laborious classes by the upper classes.
In today’s society, a new social class has emerged, the “abandoned”,
who is NOT EVEN exploited by the upper class. The upper class does not need
them any longer. As the Nogoland network is growing up, the no-go areas gradually
disappear from public space. As they do not depend any more from the laborious
classes, members of the upper classes of the world are more close to each other
than they are to the “abandonned” classes of their own country.
The best possible example of this trend is the population we belong to, who
frequents international symposiums.
Tom Frazier (Berlin and Los Angeles): Citadel of Sovereignty:
The Territorial Administration and Defense of a Private Residential Gated Community
Bixby Hill Gardens, built in Southern California’s coastal port city of
Long Beach, USA, is a private gated community located within a private gated
community. This uniquely situated residential townhouse development is nestled
at the foot of the walled and guard-gated prestige community of Bixby Hill,
which itself surrounds the historically preserved residential core of the now
publicly-owned former Rancho Los Alamitos. The Bixby Hill Gardens enclave, though
organized and recognized as being independent of the master gated community,
is subject to multiple layers of both private and public forms of urban governance,
legal regulation, and property management. These layers range from the dual
homeowner’s associations, governing boards, security and management services,
to the non-profit Rancho Los Alamitos Foundation, City of Long Beach, and various
entities at the county, state, and federal levels. This paper empirically presents
the political/legal structures and strategies of defense the sub-community of
Bixby Hill Gardens utilizes, both physically and behaviorally, to maintain its
physical territorial exclusiveness, high property market values, and functional
sovereignty, using the Security Habitation Hierarchy as a guiding framework.
I developed the Security Habitation Hierarchy (SHH) residential security classification
method to identify, organize, and categorize the multitudinous tools, devices,
and strategies used to defend residential space. The SHH is comprised of three
levels: Individual security; the housing unit or building security; and the
residential development and neighborhood security. Each of the three levels
of residential security are then divided into two types of securitization techniques:
Behavioral/Functional securitization, such as living secure, occupancy rights,
and legal governance; or physical securitization, such as private space, access
control, and street design. Bixby Hill Gardens is a case study example of how
a gated community and its inhabitants endeavor to govern, administer, defend,
and securitize residential space.
Benoît Raoulx (Caen) und Gérald Billard (Rouen):
Foundations, production and consequences of community policing in North America
: the case of San Diego and Vancouver
For two years a research project financed by the French Ministry of Research
involving 6 geographers, has studied the protection of residential spaces in
Europe and North America. Our research shows that in North America community
policing is one of the usual operational modes to improve public safety in residential
and/or commercial neighbourhoods. It is one of the elements of a shift in the
surveillance of space, like the use of gated-communities, security, technology,
etc. After an introduction introducing the political and cultural context of
community policing in North America, we will present two case studies: the first
one aims to understand how a police department can construct an effective partnership
with the citizens in order to assure the collective production of community
policing in San Diego, USA. In the second case of Vancouver, Canada, we will
present links between the co-production of policing (privatization), urban space
(segregation) and social relationships (inequalities). The focus will be on
the risk of criminalizing poverty. In conclusion, an analysis of the comparison
between community policing in North America and the so-called proximity policing
in France will be presented.
2 Non-Residential Private Urban Governance
Chair: Bodo Freund
Dennis
Judd (Chicago): Policy Communities and the Reconstruction of the Local
State
Though scholars have copiously documented the proliferation of new instruments
of urban development, the impact of the resulting institutional fragmentation
on city politics is not adequately understood. As general-purpose municipalities
devolve political authority and fiscal resources to independent public/private
authorities, the effect may be—as some have suggested—the hollowing
out of the local state, a process described by the fracturing of local fiscal
and political authority into semi-independent centers of power.
The study of urban tourism provides a window into how this process works. A
constellation of policy communities have been formed to build the infrastructure
of urban tourism. These communities have become institutionalized through the
complex web of public/private agencies that finance and manage the separate
components that comprise urban tourism: sports stadiums, convention centers,
cultural and historic districts, etc. These new institutions bypass local power
structures and overcome the political and fiscal limitations imposed on general-purpose
municipalities.
Similarly, in water and waste management, energy provision, telecommunications,
and transport, specialized actors have sought to “unbundle” infrastructure
development from local power structures by establishing closed policy communities
composed of local participants and actors embedded within globalized circuits
of infrastructure development. Local participants gain substantial independence
from local restraints by allying themselves with non-local actors. As in the
case of urban tourism, these policy communities are "glocal" –
both local and global – in composition.
Does the formation of such communities inevitably entail the hollowing out of
the local state? I propose that the effects will differ from city to city; though
the restructuring of local state is occurring everywhere, it sometimes increases,
rather than decreases, the power of local governments and public leaders. In
the United States, for example, few major urban infrastructure projects can
go forward without active support from mayors and other local public officials.
Thus, proposals to build sports stadiums typically incite substantial public
controversy, making it necessary for even the most powerful sports supporters
to seek mayoral leadership and support. In exchange for support, a skilled mayor
may be able to gain access to the political and fiscal resources of independent
policy communities and the institutions they control. By doing so, mayors may
be able to overcome some of the political fragmentation and limited fiscal resources
inherent in municipal government in the U.S.
To what degree do these observations describe recent developments in European
cities? Have specialized policy communities also intruded themselves into local
politics in Europe? If so, have local governments lost fiscal and political
capacity? I intend to explore these and related questions in this presentation.
Martin Harsche (Berlin and Frankfurt): The changing role of
airports—from traffic node to urban structure in conflict between private
business and public service
During the last decades the world noticed, in general, a process of internationalization,
especially with regard to capital, product and labour markets. This growth of
international economic activities has different interdependent reasons. The
most important factors were the lost of trade and tariff barriers, the expansion
of information and communication technology as well as the economic and social
progress in developing countries. This is also the case for the extension of
international transport systems and the growing competition in many international
markets. This internationalization was accompanied by a complementary process
of regionalization meaning a concentration of international economic activities
(trade, direct investment, labour market) in some prospering regions of national
economies. One of the consequences of these complementary processes was a powerful
growth of international passenger and freight mobility, especially between the
economically internationalized regions of Europe, the United States and other
parts of the world. The growing international mobility depends on the capacity
of international airport-infrastructure. The result is a continuous growth of
air traffic volume. The worldwide number of air traffic passengers increased
from 31 Mio. in 1950 to 1.647 Mio. in 2000. The world air freight volume was
forced up from 6,7 Mio. tons to 30,0 Mio. tons between 1971 and 2000. The growth
of air traffic volume in industrialized countries was also pushed by the process
of deregulation and liberalization of the air traffic market. Since the beginning
of air traffic deregulation in the USA in 1978 and the stepwise liberalization
in the European Union since 1987 the air traffic market underwent a fundamental
restructuring process. In the meantime all the EU-airlines are permitted to
offer their services to all destinations in the EU without any restrictions.
However, not only the air traffic and of airline markets were restructured.
Namely, the Airports by themselves as well as the airport authorities realized
a fundamental changing process. On the one hand, this changing process relates
the inner structure of activities of airports just as their spatial expansion.
Airports are not airports anymore. The modern airport is far from being merely
a pure traffic node. In fact, it grows to such an extend that it is becoming
more and more as large as a middle town with a great concentration of various
activities. The concentration of these activities induces other developments,
some of them directly related to transport activities (aircraft maintenance,
airport service industries, hotels, etc...). But, more and more other activities
take advantage of the position (convention centers, shopping malls, office centers,
medical centers, entertainment centers...) The contribution of these activities
to the airport labour market increases continuously, using the demand of thousands
of airport employees as well as millions of passengers, greeters and visitors.
The designation "airport city" is born. On the other hand the changing
process of airports depends on their impact on regional structures. Metropolitan
areas, regions and countries all need convenient and fast connections to these
gateways of internationalized social and economic activities. Airports have
become the main gateways to the world and induce more and more spatial effects
concerning the economic structure, labour markets and migration processes. Social
structures, housing structures, public households and least regional planning
aspects are also affected. Sometimes, it seems that airport authorities are
overcharged, with their new and very complex inner structure as well as their
growing influences on the spatial structure of the airport regions. Traditionally
the majority of airport authorities used to be in public ownership. Actually,
they intend or yet have realized a completely or partly privatization. They
assume new business strategies characterized by open new markets and internationalization.
Especially, the bigger airport authorities often intend to build international
airport networks by investing in airport infrastructure of other regions in
the world. Up to now, local and regional authorities are not yet sure how to
handle the structural change of airports. In the context of internationalization,
increasing air traffic volume, liberalization and the increasing influences
on regional structures, we must pose the question whether airport authorities
actually get a new role which is characterized like private supranational semi-governmental
institutions. But these institutions are not characterized by public and sufficient
democratic legitimization. The conflict between private business interests of
the airport authorities, on the one hand, and the public interests concerning
the inner airport semi-urban structure and the increasing influence from airports
on the regional structure, on the other hand, must be discussed by representatives
from politics, business, administration and involved departments of science.
3a
Private Urban Governance as a Global Trend?
Chair: Chris Webster
Michael
Janoschka (Berlin): Nordelta: a private New Town in competition with
local authorities
Nordelta is the largest housing project in the Argentinean history. After 25
years of planning period, since 1999 two national companies began to build this
enormous gated community of 1.600 ha which during the next 20 years will offer
housing for between 80.000 and 140.000 people. Besides housing, Nordelta already
offers further infrastructure as sports clubs, schools, a hospital, retail facilities
and restaurants. For the next years it is also planned to construct huge Shopping
Centers, several universities and other higher educational services, office
complexes and cultural institutions inside this exclusive area which is not
accessible for non-residents. The impact of Nordelta for the whole metropolitan
region of Buenos Aires will be enormous as the project is completely inside
the already built structure of the 14-million-inhabitant metropolis. The developers
arranged through political involvement the provincial permission to built a
whole New Town with an absolute lack of involvement of the local planning authorities.
The presentation analyses the strategies of the planning institutions to deal
with this and other large gated communities for more than 10.000 people which
are built against their intentions. Actually, there is a strong lack of capability
to carry through any kind of planning ideals and even of national and provincial
laws. On the other hand, the pioneer inhabitants of Nordelta begin to organize
themselves to establish a political system inside which today competes with
the enterprise governance but is thought to replace several functions of the
local government in the future. Empirical data (qualitative and biographical
interviews) which was recollected during a field trip to Buenos Aires between
November 2001 and February 2002 is the basis for this presentation.
Karina Landman (Pretoria): Gated communities: building bridges
or barriers?
South African cities are changing dramatically. In the aftermath of political
transformation, cities are faced with huge socio-economic and spatial challenges,
which in turn, necessitates large-scale social and spatial transformation. The
nature of these changes will either improve or worsen the current urban conditions.
Within this context, gated communities are growing rapidly, contributing to
spatial transformation in a very significant way, which in turn, has a great
influence on urban governance at a local level. Many questions arise. Why do
gated communities occur? Are they linked to high crime rates? If so, are gated
communities a way to implement Crime Prevention through Environmental Design
(CPTED)? Can we then consider gated communities as a form of “defensible
space” (Newman 1972, 1996) or a way to define territoriality – one
of the principles of CPTED (Newman 1972, Crowe 1991; Blakely and Snyder 1997)?
Or are gated communities more than just a reaction to the fear of crime? Is
it perhaps an expression of more general fears – the fear of rapid change,
globalisation and of ‘other’ people (Ellin 1997, 2001; Caldeira
2000), or impressions that local governments are weak? In this sense it may
be a response to equity issues and the fear of redistribution of wealth, especially
in South Africa. Can gated communities therefore be understood as a particular
local expression of the reigning spirit of our time, namely Post Modernism and
its manifestation in urban design through Post Modern Urbanism, as Ellin (1997)
claims? This paper aims to contextualise gated communities within the spatial
design theories of Post Modern Urbanism and Crime Prevention through Environmental
Design and then use this framework to analyse its manifestation in South Africa.
It will then investigate the relationship between spatial transformation and
territorial governance as expressed through gated communities in South Africa.
It is clear from previous research that there is a clear relationship between
the reconstruction of space (re-definition of boundaries and realms) and the
recent growth of territorial governance in the country, as exemplified by the
growth of home-owners associations, body-corporates and private firms (section
21 companies and private security firms) managing enclosed or demarcated areas.
Yet, few people appear to be concerned with the long-term consequences of these
actions in South Africa. Will they contribute to more effective urban governance
and increased cooperation between different role-players (Foldavry 1994; etc.)
or will the privatisation of urban space and governance lead to increased fragmentation
and separation (Davis 1992; Caldeira 1996; 2000; Bremner 1999; Lipmann and Harris
1999; Hook and Vrdoljak 2001; etc.) in already fragmented cities? This paper
will conclude with a discussion around this question: gated communities –
building bridges or barriers?
Ulrich Jürgens (Kiel): Gated Communities in the Johannesburg
Area—Experiences from South Africa
In the course of a broad liberalisation and globalisation of the South African
society, the transformation of the apartheid city to the post apartheid city
has contributed to an increase in crime or just to a feeling of insecurity among
the people. Urban blight has changed a lot of the inner cities into “no
go areas” for blacks and whites. For protecting oneself against the environment,
living areas have been created in the suburbs since the end of the 80s (the
phase of the abolition of apartheid laws) whose uniqueness and exclusiveness
are defined by the amount of safety measures. They are called gated resp. walled
communities or security villages, and their population structure combines social
and racial segregation. Statistical basis for this are own empirical investigations
which have been realized as a complete survey in two housing areas in northern
Johannesburg in 1999. South African families’ traditional wish for big
estates and a home of their own is replaced by wishing to live in townhouses,
cluster housing and sectional title flats with a shared use of swimming pools
or tennis courts.
3b Private Urban Governance as a Global Trend?
Chair: N.N.
Guillaume
Giroir (Orléans): The Purple Jade Villas (Beijing): a golden
ghetto in the red China
No known study has yet examined gated communities in the PR of China considering
the political sensibility of this kind of place. A case study conducted near
Beijing (The Purple Jade Villas) revealed several similar elements with the
others gated communities described elsewhere, but also many particularities
resulting of the transition of China between socialism and capitalism. So, this
new phenomenon has been analyzed at two complementary levels. First, we have
examined the specifical constituents of this luxurious micro-territory (location,
landscape, marketing strategy, prices, legal status of property, sociology,
sociability places, recreational practices, types of food...). Second, these
territory was studied in their ambiguous relationship within their metropolitan
area, ideological context and integration in the non-socialist world. The gated
community appear like a privatized, segregated and globalized place; but, at
the same time, he cannot assume a really disconnection with a socialist transitional
metropolis (insecurity risk, polluted environment, urban spreading).
Chris Webster (Cardiff): Private communities and China’s
dual land market
China’s dual-economy approach to market reform is gradually reshaping
its cities. Reforms in public housing proceed side by side with reforms in land
tenure and housing market institutions. Ironically this may mean that private
neighbourhoods find it more easy to flourish than more established mixed-market
economies. In this paper I present preliminary evidence from a project in the
industrial city of Wuhan that may be one of the world’s largest private
regeneration schemes. The privately managed neighbourhood, currently covering
1,000,000 square meters and housing 30,000, is designed to accommodate 200,000
and supplies its residents with a full range of urban services including social
services provided by a neighbourhood charity.
Jenny Dixon, Ann Dupuis, Penny Lysnar and Clare Mouat (Auckland):
Body Corporates: Prospects for private urban governance in New Zealand
Private urban governance in relation to housing is a relatively new phenomenon
in New Zealand. The most significant form of this type of governance is body
corporates, legal entities created to manage and administer common multi-unit
property for owners. While the legal framework for body corporates was created
in 1972, the proportion of dwellings covered by this legislation has, until
recently, been very small. Over the last decade, however, New Zealand’s
largest cities have experienced a boom in the construction of privately-owned
medium density housing such as low rise apartments and terraced housing. More
recently, problems have emerged in respect of their management by body corporates.
This paper draws on issues arising out of research undertaken on medium density
housing in Auckland which highlights contradictions and possibilities within
this area of private urban governance. The research identifies the inadequacies
of body corporates in their current form. In particular, we demonstrate that
a law enacted nearly 30 years ago is no longer adequate to deal with rapidly
changing dimensions of lifestyles and housing needs. We suggest that, on the
one hand, body corporates are of positive value in this regard. For example,
they can facilitate local democratic action and take on new functions, such
as those traditionally carried out by local government. On the other hand, they
can also act in ways that may appear to have more negative connotations, for
example, by exercising social control through the administration of rules. In
the New Zealand housing context, body corporates have an important role in ensuring
the success of medium density housing, the key platform for local urban intensification
policies aimed at growth management. To date the management and maintenance
functions of body corporates have been dominant, reflecting statutory requirements.
However, the potential social and political roles of body corporates have yet
to be recognised by policy makers and stakeholders alike. The prospect of significant
urban change in New Zealand cities, such as Auckland, suggests that it is critical
to re-examine the potential roles of body corporates and the implications of
their expanded functions for local government, residents and other stakeholders.
While lessons can be learned from elsewhere, it is vital that any reformulation
of the governance roles of body corporates is sensitive to local contexts.
4a Private Urban Governance in Europe
Chair: Georg Glasze
Rainer
Wehrhahn (Kiel): Gated communities in Madrid—origin and causes
of the actual expansion
Generally, the reasons for an expansion of gated communities in Western countries
are supposed to be related to postindustrial or ‘postmodern’ processes,
especially to postmodern urbanisation. Taking the concept of the action theory
as a basis, the paper, on the one hand, focuses on the question why the inhabitants
of gated communities migrate to such a community. On the other hand, the role
of public as well as private decision makers as to proliferation of this settlement
type has been investigated. In addition, the paper analyses the effects of the
socio-cultural context, e.g. the influence of the post-Franco era or the change
of housing habits during the 1990s. The analysis is empirically based on two
main pillars: 70 expert interviews with representatives of planning institutions,
urban politics, real estate companies, administration of gated communities and
security personnel and, secondly, standardised interviews with inhabitants of
different types of gated and pseudo-gated communities that have been conducted
in the year 2000. Local press archives, plans and other unpublished documents
served as a third data source. As a first result, different types of gated communities
have to be defined according to legal status, function of control system, social
status, infrastructure, etc. The context of the origin and development of the
community as well as the structure and motives of the inhabitants are very different
in large settlements of detached houses and in condominiums. Briefly, the following
findings can be stated: Cultural factors, e.g. housing habits, are much more
important than expected for the expansion of gated communities in Spain, whereas
crime rates and safety requirements are less important. The relevance of lifestyle
and prestige depends on the type of community. Marketing strategies of the real
estate sector exert less influence as expected, but in the face of the dynamics
and the kind of the expansion this factor is supposed to gain more importance
for some types of gated communities in the future. On the other hand, larger
closed settlements of detached houses will not proliferate because of legal
limitations that cannot be evaded by a public-private ‘tolerance system’,
frequently exercised in the present.
Rita Raposo (Lisbon): The Social Production of Gated Communities
in Lisbon Metropolitan Area
We present the results of a research on the social production of gated communities
in Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA), for the period 1985-1999. This area has been
subjected to social and spatial restructuration processes in the last years
and it has been deeply reshaped. These processes relate to the fast and wide
social changes that affected several other contemporary societies and visibly
marked its metropolis, in de last decades. These changes had produced new landscapes,
including gated communities. This phenomenon can be described as a form of habitat,
a new form of segregation and as a new real estate product. We surveyed the
phenomenon in LMA and interpreted and researched sociologically its social production,
including its social construction. We identified and characterised the main
social agents and processes responsible for it.
Marisol Rivas Velazquez (Rotterdam): Zeeland Privancy
This study is part of a research series about the privatisation of space in
the Netherlands and the resulting new ownership relations. The Province of Zeeland,
situated in the south west of the Netherlands, has experienced a profound transformation
into a tourist zone over the last years. Here leisure, and all that is related
to it, presently comprises from 10 to 15% of the employment of the whole region.(1)
This economical shift has gained enormous influences over the territory, and
also over the cultural environment. For many corporations Zeeland forms a great
market with open laws and attractive policies, Roompot holiday parks is a very
outstanding example of these corporations. Initially originated from camping
parks Roompot introduced in the late 70’s the second house, the vacation
house, as a more exclusive way to have holidays in your own property enjoying
the benefits of sharing common services. Since then 10 parks have been built,
two more are in project phase. One of these intends to transform Cadzand Bad,
a historical town, into an exclusive villa park. And many more are planned for
the next ten years. In all the cases the use of the villas is bound to regulations
that are set up by the Roompot Corporation. These have an impact on several
levels. Roompot Corporation offers three different options to the owners to
use their individual property. In all cases the private person is the real owner
of the house and he selects which option fits his preferred use. He can choose
the house for his exclusive use only. Then he does not rent the house to any
other people. In the other two options Roompot is in charge of renting to other
people when the owner does not use it. Roompot takes care of all issues that
are related to the process of rent such as marketing the house, receiving the
guests, solving any problems, cleaning after and before renting and maintaining
the property. What is very different from any other housing is that the Roompot
Corporation is always present. It starts from the first initial phase of planning
a park, through the financing, the making and even running the daily business
of a park. The private people are regularly the owner of a plot and a house
according to law. But through the contract Roompot still controls the look and
use of the property. Even through the financing mechanism that bases more than
50% of all private owners on the guaranteed rent option Roompot keeps the economical
AND social control over the parks. On the other side all “public”
space inside a park belongs to the private corporate. As long as Roompot guarantees
to follow the official law regulations in terms of security (fire, emergencies
etc.) Roompot can continue to modify the space to their marketing interests.
Conclusions (first draft)
Political landscape: The territorial consequences are not just related to the
growing amount of space being taken up but also related to who is having control
over it. If the Dutch economy continues to grow like in the past decade and
hence also the economical wealth, in fifteen years from now on all the cities
along the Zeeland coast will have a private villa park attached. And some municipalities
like Noord Beveland will loose real control over decisions concerning the cities
to private corporations like the Roompot.
Cultural landscape: Behind the beach and the dunes in an average depth of 2km
the Zeeland coast strip will have an image that alternates between Greek, Scandinavian
or Florida urban looks that are created by corporations in order to create atmospheric
vacation environments. These are meant to increase the feeling of being part
of a community. Economical landscape All these changes are based on the fact
that Zeeland is nowadays considered as a rural area with a big potential in
tourism. So the government gave already a huge space of intervention to the
private corporations to keep them going. On the other side the economical aspect
becomes the base of driving the future economy of Zeeland further.
David Parsons und Sarah Blandy (Sheffield): Rules and Rhetoric,
Legality and Lifestyle
This paper posits two instances of the gap between rhetoric and reality, as
exemplified by the growth of gated communities in the UK. First, the government’s
urban policy aims can be summarised as achieving balanced communities, mixed
tenure, and social inclusion; yet we suggest the legal controls in the planning
process produce very different outcomes in reality. Second, the traditional
view of property ownership is as an expression of individuality, in which ontological
security and self-esteem depend on rights of exclusion, control and disposal;
yet individual rights in gated communities are restricted through leasehold
covenants. Residents are buying into a whole ‘lifestyle’, escaping
from the dangerous outside world into a haven of like-minded others, protected
by an apparently necessary legal and technological regime of surveillance. Through
the use of a case study we compare the declared aspirations for modern urban
dwelling, with the results of the processes through which new housing developments
are implemented by the private sector, controlled by the public sector and driven
by the market and consumer preferences. The paper is based on preliminary findings
from a British Academy funded small-scale study of a gated community in the
course of development in Sheffield. Research methodology includes questionnaires
completed by residents on moving in, semi-structured interviews with residents,
key players in the city planning department, and in the development company.
The legal framework has been investigated through analysis of the lease which
sets out property rights, obligations and restrictions. This research data is
used to focus on questions about the planning and development process, the nature
of ownership, and community. Government statements, policy documents and commentaries
have been analysed to explore the mismatch between stated intentions and the
likely results of planning processes as identified by the case study. Writings
on the nature of ownership, from both housing policy and legal academic communities,
is examined to throw light on residents’ choices for gated communities.
The self-management of such communities is questioned by drawing on governmentality
literature. We investigate whether gated communities are an example of ‘responsibilised’
neighbourhoods taking on crime prevention in partnership with the state; or
whether residents are in fact withdrawing from the wider community to the detriment
of society as a whole. The paper concludes that government urban policy and
the discourse of owner-occupation are at odds with the growth of gated communities
in the UK with potentially serious consequences for future urban living.
P. Stuart Robinson (Tromsoe): The Privatisation and Fortification
of Public Space
The paper identifies a trend towards the privatisation of local politics and
the provision of security by means of neighbourhood fortifications, surveillance
technology, and private security-forces. The trend further weakens the already
faltering social and political commitment to liberal and democratic practices.
The chief causes are, first, general market concentration engendering more systematic
marketing of increasingly large-scale building projects and, second, the erosion
of the public redistribution of wealth by internationalised capital. The latter
has polarised society and bred an isolationist ‘culture of insecurity’.
The research goals are to uncover the character of such communities and the
extent to which they represent a global rather than a peculiarly American phenomenon.
Their social roots and character are explored by means of a review of available
secondary literature and primary documents (including information made available
by the Community Associations Institute and individual homeowner associations).
Interpretation of the key conditions of such communities facilitates the comparative
assessment of such conditions’ generality. This is corroborated by secondary
and primary empirical evidence of the spread of comparable communities internationally,
and a more detailed assessment of Britain as a ‘crucial case’ (using
mostly primary documents and interviews). Here the argument hinges on direct
evidence of the self-conscious export of development-forms as tried and tested
market strategies. This study of gated communities provides a revealing microcosm
of globalisation’s general erosion of the modern state-order, in undermining
the public sphere and its protection of liberal and democratic freedoms. Existing
literature neglects this important ‘microcosm’ because of a conceptual
bias towards all that is explicitly and unequivocally ‘public’.
The study builds on my research interests in the impact of globalisation on
liberal democracy in general and the ‘politics of space’ in particular.
François Madoré (Nantes) and Jacques Chevalier (Le Mans):
The words of residential closing in France and the United States
Our reflection falls on a semantic analysis of residential space closing registers
in France and the United States. Our postulate is that closing is assimilated
to a form of private space. Therefore, the question is: in these two countries,
how can we point out the existence of residential closing and how is that one
justified? In other words, which words are used by property developers to talk
about residential closing? The analysis is built on the study of programmes
launched by property developers, by means of the reading of programmes description
on the internet.
4b Private Urban Governance in Europe
Chair: Evan McKenzie
Petar
Stoyanov (Sofia): Gated communities in Bulgaria—a new trend in
the post communist urban development
The phenomenon of isolated or walled (fenced) settlements is not unusual for
Bulgaria till 1989: Datcha settlements or leisure settlements of communist rulers
existed in the fringe area of Sofia, in mountain resorts or on Black Sea coast.
After political change in 1989 new types of walled settlements of western style
are springing similar to the US-American gated communities. They are result
of the deep alteration of Bulgarian society. These gated communities could be
distinguished in two types:
1. Self-organised gated communities
2. Gated communities organised by developers
These two types are described by examples of two new gated communities near
the capital city of Sofia: Ivanyane situated on the western periphery of the
city and Mountview Village on the southeastern periphery.
Sebastian Lentz (Erfurt) and Peter Lindner (Erlangen): Social
differentiation and privatisation of space in post-socialist Moscow
With the post-socialist appearance of private property and elite housing also
gated communities occurred as an extraordinary fast growing phenomenon in Moscow.
They are not a kind of residential area completely new for the Russian society,
but their character and the criteria of access have radically changed since
soviet times. At its first stage the project is aimed at surveying the existing
areas, their history and different forms of organisation. Based on this, they
should be interpreted as a reflection and an essential part of the ongoing social
differentiation of the urban population in Moscow, thereby connecting the geographical
discussion on the privatisation of public space and the perception of these
new urban spaces with sociological works on the stratification of former socialist
societies.
Final
Discussion
Chair: Georg Glasze
The discussions in Mainz have led to the conclusion that a tremendous increase
of private urban districts which are often guarded can be observed all over
the world. According to Evan McKenzie, political scientist from the USA, in
many regions of the U.S.A., more than half of all new houses are being built
up in private communities.
Today, also in many of the so-called developing countries, the cityscape is
shaped by private areas. In Argentina or in the Lebanon, for example, where
there is not much public urban planning, where urbanism is chaotic and where
the supply of public goods is inadequate, many middleclass households decide
in favor of private enclaves. Moreover, there is a trend towards gated communities
and apartment complexes to be observed in such countries whose societies are
experiencing a rapid social and economic transformation: In China, Russia and
South Africa there are towns which undergo a sudden boom of private and guarded
forms of settlements. Whereas in China and Russia, which used to be communist,
these settlements offer a new form of social distinction to the new (and old)
rich, in South Africa it is the worry for personal security that leads to the
success of guarded residential areas. Even in some Western European countries,
such as Spain, Portugal and France, more and more guarded residential complexes
can be found. Some scholars, for example the Californian economist Fred Foldvary,
consider the emergence of private settlements to be an institutional progress
when compared to settlements which are publicly organized. The supply of local
collective goods, such as recreational areas, sport areas as well as the infrastructure
of traffic and energy, can be organized in these settlements by the private
sector. Following Foldvary, governmental intervention should not occur because
consumers will choose according to their individual taste between different
offers. The pressure of concurrence, however, implies efficient infrastructure.
Most of the researchers (from fields as different as urban and social geography,
anthropology, political sciences, urban sociology, architecture and city planning)
are critical of the consequences of (such) a material and social fragmentation
of the cities. First of all, the internal political structures of the self-
government of these settlements are manifold criticized to be undemocratic.
Secondly, some of the researchers find proof in the fact that self- government
of the private settlements institutionally strengthens social differences institutionally
and therefore endangers social cohesion.
Several publications will follow the conference, including an anthology which,
in several case studies, shows the social, economic and cultural background
which lead in some societies to a boom in priva te and gated settlements.
There was an agreement made at the conference to meet again in South Africa
2004. The location of the following conference offers the opportunity to discuss
on the spot with inhabitants and developers about guarded and gated residential
complexes. Further information about the research network offers the homepage
www.gated-communities.de.