Gated communities are residential areas with restricted access such that normally public spaces have been privatized. These developments are both new suburban developments and older inner city areas retrofitted to provide security. We estimate that at least three or four million and potentially many more Americans are seeking this new refuge from the problems of urbanization.
Economic segregation is scarcely new.
In fact, zoning and city planning were designed in part to preserve the position of the privileged by subtle variances in building and density codes. But the gated communities go farther in several respects. They create physical barriers to access. And they privatize community space, not merely individual space. Many of these communities also privatize civic responsibilities such as police protection and communal services such as schools, recreation and entertainment.