Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book contributes to the ongoing discourse on urban gated communities. Important for the book are older memories, more painful, histories of exclusion or spatial segregation, be it in post-apartheid South Africa or present day Jerusalem. The book presents traditional case studies, in fixed geographical locations and focusing within their specific local term of reference. It focuses on specific locations but explores, through the case study analysis, wider issues and causes that their reading of the situation produces. The book also focuses on the connections, networks and implications of enclosing space. The case studies deal with the traditional morphological specificities and differences of 'gated communities' and their histories in various global locations. The book explains the mechanisms of how the use of 'gating' has a more powerful effect in redefining socioeconomic relations in the area or location of the gated community.