have you ever read Mike Davis' _City of Quartz_? He mines this territory to terrifying (paranoid?) depths. Not a happy read, but fascinating.

Hey caterina

walled communities, when the fires start they' may think they'll be safe but they won't be.

Not viewed your site for some time but it seems to me like you are not the same person ( but of course you are but different). hey, did you fall in love or soemthing and whats with the dot.com start up? what have I missed, I hope nobody hhas died. people change and some don't like it:(

This sort of territory is also explored in Donald Antrim's Elect Mr. Robinson For A Better World, albeit in comedic fashion. Suburban homes with moats and a drawing and quartering with Toyotas and Subarus instead of horses, it's really quite hilarious.

It seems to me that we cannot draw much in the way of a conclusion from this. Just because people cite "crime and fear" as their "greatest concern(s)" does not mean that they are a very great concern at all. Maybe they have no really great concerns, but when forced to choose from a list (whose other choices we do not know) they picked "crime and fear". Or maybe the list of choices was long and poorly constructed, so that a plurality chose "crime and fear", but it was very small fraction indeed. I think there is just too little information to interpret.

The title line has "community" in quotes. Are you saying that there is no community behind the gates? Less community than in an un-gated big city?

"Thus the ultimate effect of the suburban escape in our time, is, ironically, a low grade uniform environment from which escape is impossible"
--Lewis Mumford

Specialized housing communities for the socially advantaged and disadvantaged alike have the same sterilizing, homogenizing effect. The difference being that the one group chooses to emulate the other. Rather odd.

time not to distant past i lived in a west oakland neighborhood called the "dogpatch"
famous for its high homicide rate among high school males.
i was in a falling down at the seams home with no heat,
and even colder, abusive partner. my escape was the street,
where i assimilated into the local your abnormal , their normal culture.
pimps, hos, dope dealers, fatherless, motherless children, and a curious underground economy revolving around survival
point is,....
the gated warehouse communities were called by the
local children as "Fort Whitey" long and short... resentment.
the beamers would pull up to the gate, it slid horizontally to the left. in they went, not seen again till tomorrow.

you never saw the royalty. except on occassion at the berkeley farmers market. 10 miles away.

I used to deride gated communities for many of the same reasons mentioned here. Elitism, social sterility, just plain hoity-toitiness. I'd mention "gated communities" and "venti half-caf latte" in the same mocking tones.

But in the last year two friends have been victims of violent crime. Both continue to be stalked and threatened by their attackers.

I'm lucky enough to live in an area where I feel secure. But I don't lament the rise of gated communities any more. I just wish my friends my friends could afford the entry fee. I lament that Los Angeles seems to be becomming a city where we're all afraid of each other. But more and more, it seems there really is something to be afraid of.