Urban studies: what is a gated community - Essay Example

Urban Studies What is a Gated Community Gated communities are 'residential living situations' comprising of single homes behind the walls and thegates with a high security. This does not include apartment houses which have been traditionally behind walls and gates and security. This list also does not include co-op and condos that make up a living atmosphere. These gated communities are the ones that have all facilities built behind the walls and they are individual single homes. These are suburban single dwelling behind a security, many times, extensive and too complex. All these people are walling some thing in and walling some thing out, in the words of Ed Blackely1. Gated communities are not new. They have happened in 300 BC in England to defend against the invading Romans. Security was the main concern and to make available common facilities in one location leading to multiple advantages by locking themselves up in a gated community. And they also had tradesmen of all kinds to supplement all needs of the society. Why Gated Communities Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out And to whom I was like to give offensive - Frost as quoted in Gated communities in America - walling out the world by R Lang and K Danielson2. More in line with this question of why a wall before a wall was erected, has always been in the minds of the people and researchers. The issue of the walled community seems to have happened because of varied reasons3. Walling is done to keep some people inside while others out. This is a delineation of political boundaries originally; more an exercise of rights. The reasons why gated communities have been formed include the following: 1. Exercise of rights over the said property and to limit entry into the gated area or walled area by people whom the owner does not want to have. 2. Security from a perceived insecurity in the not gated communities. 3. Happiness with in the gated environment within the specific set of people whom the gated communities would prefer is seen as better compared to the others in the town. Gated communities have been springing up in America in a large scale over the last two decades primarily because of these basic reasons. This is also to keep out the changes both economical and social that is rapidly changing the cities people dwell in. By gating themselves in, people seem to find solace that they have set at rest the changes. And that it has ceased to affect them anymore. How did it happen Americans are opting to live behind the walls and behind the bars with an effective and active security measures that they put in place. This is necessitated by their perceived security lapse in an open community. This initially started with more and more people tending to get popular and famous because of the open communication systems sprouting all around. Such popularity also added to a continuous stream of interested people who were trying to emulate these popular personalities and their lives. An intrusion into the private lives of these people became something unstoppable. An open community could not stop such intrusions. Once people in the popularity belt started doing it, they are the role models of many people and they are emulated by every Tom, Dick and Harry who is a somebody in the society. Therefore, the gated communities started having a larger following and today more than 19000 communities existed in US as of 1997 with more than 3.5 million households living in them and more than 8.5 million residents. Let us take for example the Green Valley community, Seattle, and study the effects and the reasons for their success and the future path it is going to take. This analysis brings out the following advantages and disadvantages. At the end we also list the future options and how the communities are going to behave. Advantages of being in a gated community Major advantages of the gated community seems to stem out of the needs that they want it to meet. 1. Security being the prime concern of all the people in the gated community, they try to escalate the security at the gates and they adopt a number of screening methods. This is to eliminate the danger for the people who reside in the community. Every vehicle is monitored, sometimes photographed and its number recorded, sometimes only those vehicles that have a resident's pass or permission could possibly go inside while the others are forced to stay out. These measures helps the community to realize the intrusion prevention that it needs badly. 2. While the first option takes care of the physical security, there is also the cultural security that many of these communities stand out and protect. A culture that works within the community almost oblivious of what is happening in the rest of the American Society. Their very own methodologies to play games or have cultural activities. Much more than that, the gated community also ensures that the people of the same economic strata get together. This ensures uniformity in spending and therefore, a gain that can be equitably distributed is possible. 3. The gated communities also seem to enjoy the fruits of their labor in terms of having their very own space once their work is over. Most of these communities are outside the city and are in the suburban region and so is the Green Valley. This meant that they come home to a place that is away from the buzz of the city and its associated idiosyncrasies. They are able to lead a private and calm life. 4. A life style is promoted and that becomes a symbol of status in the society. As a matter of fact, people tend to move from one type of fortress to another and they move upwards. Gating Up, they call it. The facilities that they get are immense and normally provides amenities that would be best and would otherwise cost the member three to four times if he were to take a membership for everyone of them. Typically, like golf courses, tennis courts, pools and many other facilities. 5. It also helps in developing the suburban tract. If you look around the Green Valley community houses, you will find the entire stretch has been developed and there are now good restaurants, life style points and many others to take care of the expectations of these communities. This would help the stress in the city to move out and thereby reducing the nature of work that has to be carried out to maintain the city. While the advantages are primarily what the effect of the gated colonies have on people, we find that the disadvantages are primarily the ones that have overbearing impact on the society and on the posterity as well. Disadvantages Let us list the disadvantages or the points anti to the gated communities. 1. Though the communities have a protected environment, it is highly questionable whether they really give the protection that these communities are after. For instance, there is no full scale protection that they can guarantee against anything like arson or a terrorist attack. Though the high gates and the walls that exist all round give you a confidence that people inside are protected. 2. There is also a misleading assumption that there is a culture that is existing inside these communities behind the gates and the bars. But this was also not found true. Only a few of them knew their neighbors personally. The situation was as bad as it is outside these communities. Therefore that there exists a culture and lots of intermingling between them is not true. 3. By creating these fortresses a clear class separation is happening in the society. A class that is divided on the basis of economical status and the work methodologies have lead to creation of these fortress of walls. Also such class separation would lead to a larger problem when this becomes much more pronounced. As a matter of fact, what is called Gating Up happens when the community tries to improve itself from one gated community to the other resulting in movement of people from one class to another more like what was happening in the early years of European history. 4. Gated communities are private. They make normally public utilities into private and they have associations that have very close control on what is happening in these gated communities, have very rigid controls on the way individuals work inside the community. For instance, there are rules restricting people from having more than a certain number of guests and partying beyond a specific timeline. 5. Most of these communities have impressive and dominating walls and the landscape is more and more like the Bonsai trees of Japan, cut to the size that the people want. There is no liberty for the growth of these trees. The natural happening is lost. 6. Many people find that these communities are more of corporate selling and regimentizing rather than have something interesting and culturally exciting that happens there. The creators of these Gated communities work hard to make a lasting brand; a name that will sell. Like the one in the Green Valley. And then follow it up with the same principles and regimented rules. 7. Limited number of controlling rules and legislations exist on these communities. Very few laws have been passed on them and they are not specifically raising any issue because the bodies gets a standard tax base with very little service to be provided to them. All these result in not so encouraging a scene for the Fortresses that get built in the sub urban America. Walled communities have their advantages in terms of pooling up of the common resources so that they could enjoy the fruits and share with their neighbors as well. There is an increased sense of security and belonging to the place. These tendencies need to be adequately mapped and controlled through appropriate legislation resulting in using the positive aspects of gated communities as well as removing the negative ones out. Read More