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The UN take on gated communities
Gated communities fuel Blade Runner dystopia and 'profound unhappiness' UN-Habitat chief Joan Clos warns segregated housing may breed hostility, and calls for leaders to tackle urban inequality
The proliferation of gated communities threatens to create a Blade Runner-style dystopian future, warns the UN's housing chief.
The rapid growth of gated communities around the world is contrary to the democratic and open city and belongs instead to a dystopian future of mass surveillance and profound unhappiness, the UN's housing chief has warned.
"It is with increased preoccupation and sadness that we see how gated communities are proliferating everywhere. This is an expression of increased inequality, increased uneasiness in accepting diversity," said Joan Clos, executive director of UN-Habitat, the human settlements programme.
"The ideal city is not one with gated communities, security cameras, a futuristic scene from Blade Runner, dark and dramatic, with profound unhappiness … We need to at least build a city where happiness is possible and where public space is really for everybody."
More than half the world's population lives in cities. By 2050, that proportion could rise to 70%, according to estimates. This urban explosion – most of which will happen in developing countries – will pile increasing pressure on the planet. "If we are seeing inequalities increasing," Clos warned, "then we are facing a real problem."
While sometimes seen as quintessentially American, a product of suburban sprawl and car culture, gated communities have become increasingly fashionable worldwide. In Brazil, they are condominio fechados, or closed housing estates; in Argentina barrio privados (private neighbourhoods). Mexico has one of the highest concentrations of gated communities in the world, while in South Africa, large-scale, private "security estates" have come under the spotlight with the trial of paralympian Oscar Pistorius, who is accused of killing his girlfriend at home in the exclusive, 90-acre Silver Woods country estate.
Many of the larger developments are in effect small towns with their own infrastructure and services. But while the stereotype may be a private, high-security fortress, academics have also identified other sub-types: some developments, for example, sell a "lifestyle", like country clubs and retirement villages; "prestige" communities, meanwhile, trade on status and a sense of luxury and exclusivity. Purpose-built communities such as those catering to expatriate workers in the Gulf states are another type.
Some sociologists talk about broader "urban gating" as a wider phenomenon of privatising the city, segregating populations, and gating luxury developments and ghettos.
Joan Clos, former mayor of Barcelona. 'The gated community represents the segregation of the population,' he says.
In China, gates have gone up around poor villages, too, with fences erected and night-time curfews imposed on the basis that these measures could help stem crime. There are also cases, such as in Lima, Peru, where residents have separated streets and neighbourhoods with barriers and fences.
The expansion of gated communities is often tied to fear, Clos says, and the failure of the state to provide security. But the trend may also breed hostility, suspicion, and social tension, he warns.
"The gated community represents the segregation of the population. Those who are gated are choosing to gate, to differentiate, to protect themselves from the rest of the city. This is contrary to the vision of a democratic and open city."
Not enough is being done to address inequality in urban areas, added Clos, a former mayor of Barcelona. Cities produce more than 80% of world gross domestic product, yet this wealth is far from widely spread.
"When this unfairness takes root in the population, it can create a sense of fear, a sense that we don't trust each other. The outcome is that the urban pattern becomes more segregated, more differentiated. This is not socially admirable or economically productive."
Cities must be designed to provide public space that can be used by anybody, Clos says. Governments and aid donors should focus on urban policies and work on boosting minimum wages and the provision of good urban services such as schools, transport, water and sanitation, he added. Such services are a kind of "social salary," helping the poor more than the rich: "That gives the sense of fairness, of justice."
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