gated communities seem stereotypically associated with “rich people”. By contrast, a “gated trailer park” is not at present a popular meme.
So how come? Is setting up a perimeter fence with razor wire on top at present sufficiently expensive that only a rich neighborhood could afford it? Or is this just a matter of cultural difference between the sort of people who manage middle class neighborhoods and “rich” neighborhoods, so that the middle class ones don’t do it “because that’s not how it’s done” as opposed to because it is objectively not feasible?
I don’t think the real cost is in building a fence and gate; it’s in hiring guards to stand there all day and open and close the gates. Even spread out over all the residents, for a trailer park that’s going to add up to some real money. For CEOs of investment banks, that amount of money is a rounding error. And for middle-class people who desperately want to feel like they’re successful, paying for guards might be noticeable, but worth it for the status.
It’s the damn gate that normally always breaks down that is the difference. The homeowners in a middle class neighborhood hate paying extra homeowner association dues, to constantly fix the gate. The upper class neighborhood dues are already high enough to cover gate maintenance, plus the like the exclusivity of the gate.
in other words, all that stands between us and the hypothetical wonderful utopia of cheaply built fences all over the place is a “gate” contraption that would have a minimum of moving parts (to avoid breaking) and be capable of operation by a part-time minimum wage employee? (for which role the middle class neighborhoods of today probably have no shortage of candidates)
Another consideration is to design the community in such a way that the access is limited (i.e. only 1-2 ways in or out) so that you can actually regulate who and what comes in and out.
Beyond that, there’s no requirement for a 10 foot stone wall or anything like that, just a guardhouse, gate and guard, which probably doesn’t raise the cost of the community much, and the guard will likely be paid for through HOA dues.
What’s the minimum requirement for a “gated community”? What if my neighborhood had a four foot tall wrought iron fence, that surrounded the neighborhood, and a couple of road entrances with manually operated gates which are *capable *of being closed, but never actually are. Maybe we have a “guard house”, but its more decorative than functional. Can this be called a gated community?
ETA: I guess having private roads would be necessary, rather than public ones, so assume that also.
I’m familiar with some gated communities in Florida.
The ones I know about are condos populated largely by retirees. It is exactly like “Boca Del Vista” from Seinfeld.
These have a practical reason to be gated. They are reasonably close to the ocean, and for a few years before they put in a gate, non-residents would come in to park, using up all the spaces.
The gate they did put in was the type you would open either from your car, using a garage-opener type of thing, or using an access-code at a little kiosk.
in cases where road funding may be a big issue, could the problem be avoided by having a fence and entrance checkpoints that permit cars to enter freely but do not allow pedestrians or bikers without identification? Let’s say the entering cars, having slowed down on the bump, would be classified as residents/registered guests/unknown outsiders, and the latter kind raise an automatic alarm accompanied by a “hello, mysterious stranger” message shown to the driver on a roadside screen? But the cars would not be impeded from entering.
Would this kind of road still fit the definition of “public road”? Or which features of the above setup would need to be removed or altered to stay within the “public road” definition?
Yeah that’s common around here, an access gate with a keycode, to stop non-residents loitering in common areas and to ward against break-ins.
I noticed a lot of newer housing estates here, think American cookie-cutter suburbs, have fences, if not gates. If you’re walking among the estates it can require you to hop the fence to take the natural shortest route between them. I’m not sure if this is meant for security, or to stop children playing in green areas running out on busy roads, or just because someone thought it would look good. As a pedestrian, it’s really fucking irritating.
I think ‘gating’ is just a symbol of these communities. They are just like Homeowner Association communities, with no public roads, and a fence and a gate around it. The community would have to be pretty small for that fence and gate to provide real security. But it would tend to keep out traffic, idle teenagers, and soliciters, except from other members of the community.
We have a small gated community tucked into our town. It’s appears to be a bunch of prefab houses. It hardly looks like utopia, more like condos with a little space between the units.
In the ones I have seen there has to be a guard to screen visitors, the mailman, deliveries, etc. You can’t really put up a gate with no guard and have much security.
I think it’s to keep *you *off private property. If you have to hop a fence, you’re not supposed to be there.
Except it’s only taking me where I can walk to, if I walk around the fence and follow the path. These areas aren’t fully enclosed and I’m not talking about people’s personal gardens, talking about green areas that lie between estates usually.
As noted, the cost isn’t about the gates themselves. To put those up in the first place, you have to have control over enough land to declare yourself semi-independent from the surrounding area. The gates are just a symbol of that. It isn’t like you can’t just walk through the woods into most of them if you want to. They just don’t want random people around as a general rule. The people that want to do that usually have some money but don’t have to be truly rich. My mother and stepfather live in one in the Dallas area. It is a suburban housing development of McMansions as people like to call them all built around the same time. It is nice but certainly not that exclusive for the Dallas area. The gated communities where truly rich people live are the really expensive areas close to the city proper where people want to be close to everything and then go home behind a secure wall of equally wealthy neighbors.