ABSTRACT
The following may serve as a present-day exemplification of J. K. Galbraith's famous antinomy of public squalor and private opulence: As municipal services decline in urban areas, residents and businesses in upscale districts insulate themselves from these effects. They hire private garbage collectors, street cleaners, and private police protection unavailable to the city as a whole. Privately governed residential enclaves known as common interest housing developments (CIDs), about one-fifth of them gated and walled, are the predominant form of new housing in the USA's fastest growing cities and suburbs. Over the last 30 years, this massive privatization of local government functions, consisting of over 230,000 housing developments containing almost one-sixth of the nation's population, has changed the appearance and organizational structure of American urban areas. The CID revolution is driven by the motivations of developers and local governments on the supply side, and consumers on the demand side, with the supply side interests predominating over the demand side.
