The term gated community refers to any type of neighborhood that has controlled access using one or more gate that residents or visitors must pass through.
The trend for such dwellings picked up in southern California in the 1960s.
Why these communities flourished?
Their most remarkable growth is seen in countries like India, Brazil and Mexico, where they have grown manifold mainly because of a lack of confidence in law enforcement.
As the middle class grew more disappointed with the state’s ability to assure personal safety and basic utilities, it ran into property developers, who offered walled residences.
Fear of crime and the “outsider” have always been the fundamental reasons for people moving into gated communities.
Why gated communities are not the solution?
In India, there are frequent reports about criminals who easily breach the porous security of a gated complex.
Eventually, every gated community dweller must engage with the city making the gates irrelevant.
In the gated communities, all the action happens within the gates. If the wall wasn’t there life would be conducted outside and therefore greater social surveillance against petty crimes would have been in place.
Gated communities also promotes a general feeling of social paranoia, implying that other parts of the area are unsafe and the gated community is necessary to protect residents.
The tall gates of the complex represents the separation of poor and rich thereby, laying the basis for more crime.
Hiding in private enclaves cannot be a solution to our unsafe cities.
