ABSTRACT
In terms of private urban governance the US has a wide range of experience, which allows investigation of the issues raised by their long-term implementation. As a specific form of private governance, walled and gated residential neighbourhoods have become a common feature within the fastest-growing US metropolitan areas. Numerous gated communities have been developed since the 1960s in southern California, which serves in this chapter as a field of study for discussing the consequences of fading boundaries between public and private management due to the rapid development of these enclaves. Because security systems and around-the-clock gates prevent public access, gated communities represent a form of urbanism where public space is effectively privatisedprotected for the exclusive consumption of a spatially and legally defined group. They differ from condominiums and secured apartment complexes because they enclose more natural real estate (as opposed to land created by investment in high-rise development). In some cases this land and its public infrastructure, such as streets, parks, sidewalks and beaches, was formerly open to all. In some cases some of the infrastructure is still publicly owned. Gated neighbourhoods have greatly increased in number since the 1970s and have become a powerful symbol of the fragmentation and increasing social segregation of contemporary cities (Blakely and Snyder 1997). Social segregation goes hand in hand with developments like this because they are managed as private corporations, tend to seek political autonomy and practice implicit selection of residents.
