ABSTRACT
The issue of gated communities raises important questions about the future forms of urban development. The standard perception of gated communities is that design and technological innovations serve to increase privatism and destroy traditional community ties of neighbourliness, community and cohesion. Gated communities are thus seen as a feature of growing importance in the development of residential segregation taking place within cities. Gated communities can be analysed in economic terms as a form of holding property rights developed through collective action of individuals for individual and mutual benefits. The gated community represents a dilemma for policy makers between the concepts of segregation and security. As society has become more fragmented and privacy is highly desired by residents, to see gating as the antithesis of social cohesion by reinforcing social and class divisions, producing new forms of segregation between rich and poor, ignores the much more complex relationships between individuals and their environments.
