For the purposes of this discussion though, so what? It’s not like there aren’t any drug addicts robbing houses.
“OMG Someone stole my TV!”
“Don’t worry. That’s just drug addicts.”
I think that the antipathy for Gated communities is based purely on envy .
Why should it bother you how other people choose to live ?
If people for whatever reason feel rightly or wrongly that a G.C. is more child friendly, more secure, or safe from traffic why are you so upset about it ?
And if they’re wrong that’s their look out.
Its not mostly rich people who live in them , and even if it was, you can’t legislate against wealth.
Rich people tend to live in big houses with their own grounds and their own security, they’re segregated anyway, so they’re not likely to pop round your house to borrow a cup of sugar, or invite you round for drinks. .
If you live in a run down area, making everyone else live in one isn’t going to make your own standard of living one jot better .
I’m not sure who’s more arrogant: The dude who lives in a gated community or a dude who thinks that gated communities should be forbidden…because he doesn’t like them.
These don’t go together. If anyone can afford a gated community of some kind, why would anyone be “jealous” rather than just move into one?
And I’m sure even at a municipal level, there is plenty of things we could legislate against gating off a section of town.
I think Lust4life had it right. The wealthy gate their own homes. And why not? If you have money you’re a target. That’s the downside of being rich. You become a target.
The middle class, what’s left of it, are trying to keep the poor from stealing from them, so they pay ADT or whoever to protect their homes with alarm systems, which at least in Durham, NC, the thieves have already figured out; they break in and tear out the system in less than 15 seconds, get what they want and are gone in less than 3 minutes (according to the police).
So a lot of middle class people would rather pay an association to fence off and guard the entire neighborhood. At least that works.
Be careful what you wish the government to do based on such hypothetical reasons, because before long they’ll ban something you care about on equally flimsy grounds.
Do you have a cite to show that most conservative representatives are wealthy and most liberal ones are not? I’d be interested to see how much correlation we have. My ultra-conservative father likes to say that liberals were born wealthy; conservatives are people who’ve had to work for what they have. I question his generalization as much as I question yours.
Bingo.
I don’t live in a gated community, and suspect I’d find one pretty boring, but I would never dream of banning them. It’s a free country. People may live pretty much wherever they please.
Well there is a little more to it than that imho. I disagree with the OP’s argument that we shouldn’t allow people to isolate themselves. However when a neighborhood blocks all through traffic that is probably not what the municipal government was thinking when they zoned it as residential. So there could be some argument for bylaws disallowing them in certain parts of town. Eta: personally I wish they would take a hammer to developments that are a mass of cul-de-sacs and crescents because everybody wants to be on a “quiet” street.