Gated Communities
 

I don't like gated communities, the whole concept irks me on multiple levels, they seem like these creepy places where everyone has to follow these vaguely orwellian codes of conduct and the whole concept of shutting off entire areas is very, very socially destructive. At any rate these smartarses decided to do something about it and make a series of 'viewing platforms' allowing people to see into some of the larger gated communities in LA.

There was a fun X-Files episode where someone raised a demon to enforce the rules of his gated community.

I like the idea of turning them into terrareums.

That's kind of funny because when you put platforms around a gated community, the community becomes a prison. :lol:

What a bunch of art-fag asshats. They own it, they pay for it, they can do what they want with it.

No one is being exploited and their taxes are being spent paying for roads and police that never enter the facility except to take out the trash.

gated communities cut of swaths of cities, enforce social boundaries and help heighten segregation. All they're doing is pointing this out, the built it, it's on public land, they can put it there.

I don't like them; I hate having to ask a guard or pass security barriers merely to go anywhere. That would go triple for my own home; I wouldn't live in one. They don't put them in places which make sense, anyway. If you're building a gated community, why not put it in North Philadelphia or central Detroit? The land is cheaper and the security barriers feel a lot more necessary.

I didn't say that they couldn't do it. I just said they were a bunch of pretentious art-fag asshats for doing it.

That's one of the many rights in America. Be as stupid and self-aggrandizing as you want.

Edit: That includes the self-aggrandizing asshats behind the gates too.

This is Los Angeles. There's no place you can go in the city that's more than a minute away from a very dangerous part of town. Even in the heart of Beverly Hills, you're only 30 seconds away from Culver City or Ingelwood. The West Side beach front property is just a minute or two from South Central. Mulhullond and the Hollywood hills are just a step away from Korea town and North Hollywood.

The talk about community and togetherness and socialization is all fine, but there are people who like to steal things and hurt people. I see no problem with making it hard for those people to get to the people I care about most. I see no problem with my wife feeling safe walking through the streets of the neighborhood alone and pregnant. If that takes a wall and a gate and 500 armed guards with rabid dogs, shouldn't it be my right to pay for those things?

One of the reasons that so many of these gated communities are going up is because of the housing crunch. There are no homes for sale in the areas people want to live, so developpers are buying out whole blocks in less desirable areas, levelling the houses and building new ones. The only way to convince someone to buy a half million dollar house in Inglewood is to put a gate around the block.

-sm

and building gated communities is the answer?
Ever been to south africa?

Gated communities are a perfectly acceptable part of the answer. Increasing the economic base of the community is another. Decreasing the types of drug-related activity that causes people to commit violent crimes is another. Increasing police presence and effectiveness is another. Getting kids to finish high school would help.

There are systemic problems going on that undergird crime, especially violent crimes. I think addressing those problems would be a very good idea. But simply stating that as a goal isn't going to make it so, and in the interim, protecting myself and mine seems like a perfectly appropriate middle ground. I really don't see how increasing my families safety decreases anyone else's rights.

And what the hell does South Africa have to do with anything?

California has to go the gated community route because they have gun control. Only the criminals have guns there. Oh, and Senator Feinstein.

So will her bullets have numbers like the proletariat?

It's not difficult to commit rape and murder with out a car.
Asshats.

If I want to live in a gated community that's patrolled by rent-a-cops, in effect keeping out people who don't have any fucking business being there, then why can't I?

If you have a reason to be there, there's no problem getting in.

Try explaining your "socio-economic isolation" bullshit to the guy whose house was vandalized, broken into, jewelry stolen, wife raped, and kids beat up.

Fuck THAT. I'll be moving into the gated community near me.

we've got quite a few gated communities here in phoenix. and damn near EVERY neighborhood (including mine) is walled off with only a couple of access points. it helps with the block watch system and all that jazz. if there are only 100 homes in the neighborhood and only 2 ways in and out for cars, then pretty soon you recognize all the cars and a different one sticks out pretty easily.

i like the set up. if you don't live in a neighborhood, and you aren't visiting someone who does live there - why exactly should you have access to that neighborhood?

Well, it causes traffic congestion. You have all these gated communities that dump traffic out onto the main streets. If you have a typical grid setup of streets, traffic can cut through on any number of streets. If you want to travel from a house in one gated community to a house 500 feet away in another gated community, you have to drive all the way out to the entrance, out onto the major clogged street, back in to the entrance of the other gated community and then to the house you want to visit. Grid systems are MUCH more efficient for traffic (And fuel consumtion, but that's another story.)

If I want to travel 500 feet away, I'll walk.

Not if there is a fence in the way.

Will you bring a stepladder?

I haven't been in many GC's, but the ones I have been in, in Northern VA, had high walls surrounding them and a gate that opened directly onto a major road.

And the atmosphere - I've never been more creeped out in my life.

I'll never dispute the right of GC's to exist, but damn if they aren't some of the creepiest little antisocial mini police states you can find in the US. On the other hand, they attract GC-type people away from other neighborhoods.

I've lived in gated communities in vegas, and there are pedestrian turnstiles (one on each directional wall) by a guard gate. No step ladder required.

If a GC is somewhere you don't want to go anyway, why do you care if there's a wall or not? It's not as though tearing down the physical wall will make the inhabitants start throwing block parties for outsiders. They'd just hire more security instead.

It is sort of insulting, though. They're acting all superior by locking people out of their precious matchy-mailbox little world. But that's fine. I don't want to see a bunch of Stepford Wives all leaving their house simultaneously to walk their identical SharPei's. Or however you spell it.

But you still need to go to the gate to leave the community. You can't walk to that house 500 feet away, because you have to go all the way out to the gate, down the busy street, which may or may not have a sidewalk, and then into the other gated community to the other house.

Because it's a barrier to your passage to somewhere else. With a grid system of streets, you can use any cross street to get to where you are going. Gated communites cause congestion on main roads, and increase travel times when you want to go somewhere.

johannesburg is what happens when you take gated communities to the extreme.

Gated communities are a response to Johannesberg. But a lot of places in the US, there's gated communities where crime isn't anything like that kind of problem -- I'll bet that includes most of the ones in Phoenix, for instance. Just a haven for security-freaks who like to feel exclusive.

phoenix is a grid system and i see no traffic disruptions from this at all. we have traffic lights on every intersection. The traffic keeps to the main arteries - reducing traffic flow through neighborhoods, allowing our kids to be a little bit safer in their yards, driveways, and sidewalks. the arteries are an exact 1 mile block system, every half mile has a main thoroughfair (sp). this means that at the very most, 1/4 mile in ANY direction takes you to a street with easy access.

maybe it is hard to visualize this but phoenix isn't all gated communities, but it is almost completely WALLED communities. it really isn't about being snobby, or elitist or keeping anyone out. phoenix is a horizontal, rather than vertical city. i am very blessed that i have a 1/4 acre lot that buts up to a preserve. most lots run from 6000-8000 sq ft. this means you are right on top of your neighbors. people have walls around their back and side yards for security and more importantly -for privacy. if my wife wants to layout by the pool topless, she can. if my son wants to play in his sandbox while i make dinner, he can - he is protected from prying eyes and bad intentions by a 6 foot wall. (and 2 large dogs) i can put my dogs in the backyard, without worrying about putting them on a chain, etc. it also means i don't have to look out my living room window and watch my obese neighbor sit out on his porch eating KFC and chain smoking until 3 am every night too.

it doesn't mean we are unfriendly or anti social. we have block parties frequently in the cul-de-sac and everyone has a great time. the kids play basketball and baseball in the common areas. i am one of the few people who has actually brought people from the neighborhood into my back yard. in phoenix, your backyard is like an extension of your house - you don't invite everyone into your house and you don't invite everyone into your backyard.

come to think of it - the only homes in phoenix that don't have walls are in Sun City (retirement community) or in the more rural areas.

No sweetie, no...the gated communities are back to back, so they are interconnected.

maybe gated communities in philly are different than those fould elsewhere. maybe that is why philly is so depressed.

Have you ever lived in Phoenix? Or Vegas? Or LA?

No, the violent crimes aren't loke Johannesburg, (thank God) but I'd rather live in a gated community than have bars on my doors and windows.

I remember this about Pheonix now. It was settled after the invention of the automobile. I was amazed at how huge the blocks are. Here, you could have 20 blocks or more in a mile.

Obviously, gated communities are diffferent everywhere, and it sounds like for Phoenix it is working.

A fundamental truth, though is that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you have a fence around an area, it will be blocking people from going in a direct line between two points.

Here's a hand drawn map of what a typical gated community around here looks like. If you live in a green house, and your friend lives in the other green house, you still have to follow the purple path to visit one another, and both communities together take up a huge chunk of real estate, keeping everyone else from cutting through the area. Maybe they are different around you and OC.

lookout - suburbs in australia are like that, having a wall around your property it totally different to a gated community with private security and restricted access.

I should qualify all this. Technically I live in a gated community, this apartment block has private security at the door, CCTV on the main entrance both inside and out, 4 locks between me and the outside world and pin-locked doors in front of those. This isn't the worst part of london, it's not the best either. I hate it and am actively looking to move into a private house.

yeah they are different. but similar in some ways. the person who lives behind me shares a common wall with my yard. i wanted to visit him iwould have to drive about 1/5th of a mile to his house. fortunately i don't like the guy, so i don't have to worry about doing that. :eyebrow:

that is a similar setup, glatt, but there is also a walkway between the red line that is shared wall. so I would just have to walk through to the next complex

Are the roads inside the communities maintained by the city/county? or by the neighborhood? If my taxes are paying for the roads, I want to be able to move freely on them without regard to yuppie snobbery -- tear down the walls. But if they're maintained by a road association within the community, they have the full right to pave them with gold and exclude whatever traffic they desire.

the only way it can be walled off is if the whole thing is private property - roads, parks, main line to utilities, everything. All maintained through association fees.

in walled off communities they are paid for by tax dollars, just like every other road. you can drive through the neighborhood if you want - but there is no need to as you will generally just go in some sort of circle until you find an exit out.

if it is gated, the neighborhood has to pay for initial construction, but i believe they are maintained with tax dollars.

Some gated communities are not as secure as you'd expect.

The developer pays for the initial construction then deeds it over to the community association who is then responsible for it. It remains private property throughout and no tax dollars are ever used on it.

ok, i just know that in my old neighborhood which was gated that the city crews did the maintenance.

Beestie is correct. The object of the game is for the developer to skimp and skip as many things as possible to create enough semblance of a street and utilites so that he can dump the whole thing on the homeowners association and run. My gated community got left with more than $40,000 worth of debts for work never paid for and mostly not inspected. What was a beautiful pond behind my house when they were selling it to me is now a stagnant ditch with all the fish and plants dead because the complex manager knows nothing about maintaining landscaping and the builder did not line the bottom. The City or County will never be obliged to pay for ANY repairs or improvements to anything behind our gates, unless we are taken over by their Health Department because of a fortuitous outbreak of Bubonic Plague.

Gated communities are also turning up in conspiricy theories that G W Bush is using these to start the one world one relegion order and these are just ways to train people for the upcoming events. That if they ever get the Constitution ammended where Non-
American born citizens can be president The Governer of California Arnold Schwarzenegger will become president and turn this county into another Nazi Germany

WTF? :3_eyes:

I've seen more rational posts inscribed in urine on NYC subway walls.

Really? You go around reading urine inscriptions? :lol:
Maybe Breakingnews can hook you up with a paper to read.

Seriously though, you've got to give him credit for creativity and most certainly for originality. OK, not so much on believability but maybe he can tell us how he arrived at those...um..thoughts.

No, that was the Virgin Mary, wasn't it??

I'm begging you to develop this storyline. Start a thread.

Such organizations can be as much a threat to individuals' liberties as the goverment. This "Heavy Trash" group is entitled to dislike gated communities, but their reasoning is silly, and their "dialog provoking" platforms are a pretty ugly violation of the privacy of the property owners.

What makes these people think the privacy-violating platforms are an appropriate measure? The fact that the people inside are rich, and think themselves superior to those outside? So what if they do? They are breaking no laws, and harming no one. Besides, that smug superiority is evident on both sides of the wall. The other reason is apparently that Heavy Trash thinks that gated-community-dwellers don't contribute enough to society:

So I guess their next action will be to point webcams into the back windows of any hermit-types they can find... because violating privacy is OK if it's for a righteous, society-contributing, dialog-provoking cause. While they're at it, I wish they'd put a platform like this next to my neighbor's fence... he won't let me cut through his pool area to get to the next road, forcing me to go around the long way. Dirty rotten fucker.

Being selective about which (and whose) rights we are willing to defend is the very mechanism that takes them away from us.

(No, I have never lived in a gated community).

Applause :corn: