Gated community living: a global and developing-country phenomenon

The ancient self-contained walled cities were places of grandeur where all members of the community had access to shared facilities such as baths, recreation space, churches, and community meeting places, and walls served as a mechanism for defence against invaders. The modern gated community is a residential area with restricted access, where normally public spaces have been privatised, and public goods are privately provided or maintained. It has its own `architecture of fear ' (Marcuse, 1997). Access is controlled either by physical design, using walls, fences, traffic barriers, or electronic devices such as automatic gates, smart-card-operated gates, or entry-phones, or by 24-hour security personnel. Caldeira (2000) describes these types of development as fortified enclaves, which are turned inward, away from the street, the public life of which they explicitly reject. She notes they are controlled by armed guards and security systems, which enforce rules of inclusion and exclusion. The contemporary gated-community phenomenon first appeared in the United States in the 1970s, twenty years before it first emerged in the developing world, beginning around the mid-1990s (Webster, 2001). Friedman and Goetz (1982), as wel