ABSTRACT
This chapter examines neoliberal securitization strategies embedded in corporate legal structures and institutions as a way of problematizing the concept of privatization (also see Mitchell 2003; Low and Smith 2006; Miller 2007). A focus on private governance in two types of collective housing schemes found in New York City and the adjoining suburbs, gated condominium communities and co-operative apartment complexes (i.e. co-ops) uncovers the spatial, legal, and financial barriers constructed to provide “security” and “safety” and that organize and regulate people according to economic, social, political, and cultural ideals. Drawing from ethnographies of gated communities and co-ops in New York City and Nassau County, New York, these two forms of collective home ownership will be used to illustrate the impact of private governance structures on the politics, emotions and social relations of residents. They suggest that other forms of privatization also employ securitization as a means of mobilizing support for what would otherwise be seen as race and class segregation through exclusionary practices.
