Guns, Gangs, Guards and Gates

The news today told of a gang of burglars who tracked the comings and goings of celebrities living in Los Angeles (how hard is it to know that star baseball player is at a game?). They got a lot of loot… until they got caught.  But we do live in a nation with more guns than people, including tens of millions of semiautomatic assault weapons with large magazines. That’s one hell of an excuse, but the underlying fear is growing fast… income inequality has never been more pronounced in this country, the absolute worst in the entire developed world.

Back in the 1970s, the notion of a guard-gated community was almost unheard of here. Sure, those high-rise coops in New York City had and most definitely continue to have “doormen” and often security guards as a part of mega-wealthy financial and corporate mavens living in the Big Apple. Their limos line the streets, waiting for some of the richest people in the world who expect to be taken to… er… wherever. But there has been an almost one-to-one correlation between the growing great divide between the richest in the land and the rest of us… and the explosive growth of guard-gated residential communities, exceptionally evident in uber-rich suburbs in California, Colorado, Florida and Texas.

Some pretend to offer special access to water sports, a clubhouse with a pool, skiing, golf, but try and get into one of these without an invitation and without showing a government-issued ID. And more than a few of these communities are simply well-guarded fortresses with cameras on the periphery, armed guards at the gate plus a few more driving down the streets, just in case. Estimates place 13 million plus Americans behind such gates. Europeans are fascinated at this phenomenon (alien to them), as this French piece suggests.

“When property developers are asked the advantages of living in such [gated and guarded communities], they always have the same arguments. They praise a unique opportunity to live freely, without having to cope with any constraints of the city. They perfectly know how to take advantage of the conservative ideas of the American middle class that wants to live by the values of the past. Is this desire to wall up from the rest of the world the modern expression of the American Dream?...

“In his report ‘United Gates of America,’ the American journalist Charlie LeDuff addressed the issue of fences. Safety is the central focus of the inhabitants. John Knight lives in Canyon Lake, one of the most important communities of Los Angeles. When the journalist from NY asked him why he settled there, he answered very clearly: ‘We reached such a level of violence in this country that you need to pay to feel safe. You have to pay for almost everything like having a private life, for humanity and for being happy. But if it is necessary, I will pay the price for it.’

“John Knight is far from being the only one thinking this way. For many of his neighbors, there is so much insecurity that moving far away from the town centers is not enough to protect themselves from violence. Distancing themselves from violence hubs also goes with hiding behind safety devices. Vigilance continues to apply indeed within the community itself. For instance, automatic window and door locking, unbreakable gate, video surveillance, and private surveillance patrols aim to protect you even against your own neighbors. You can never be too careful. Some of the people who live in Gated Communities barricade themselves so much behind security systems that they no longer dare to go out without fearing for their life. Like prisoners, they live outside reality. It is the fences' butterfly effect, no one escapes it.

“Safety is worth a lot of money in the Gated Communities. In addition to high maintenance charges and the enormous purchase price, these housing estates require their residents to comply with very stringent rules. If you decide to live in a Gated Community, you are told which lifestyle to adopt. 

“You cannot do what pleases you, otherwise you will have to pay for it. Most of the restrictive rules apply to property maintenance. The community has to emphasize on rules that directly apply to your home, in order to ensure green lawns, kind smiles and shining roofs. For instance, if the water of your swimming pool turns cloudy, you must clean it immediately. You also need to fix your plumbing problems quickly, to paint your low walls and to eradicate weeds. If not, financial penalty may ensue…

“Gated Communities are an extreme embodiment of communitarianism. Districts aiming at gathering people from the same social class are not new. You just have to look at major cities in the United States to realize how deeply urban segregation is rooted in the overall population. Barricades erected in the Gated Communities however changed the face of social inequality which can be easily seen and localized, and has never dealt so much with material wealth before. Walls keep the poor together and set them apart from the wealthy people who live an opulent life. Two worlds coexist on each side of the barbed wire fence. As an impassible barrier, it also represents the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor in the United States who are tired of trying to live together. This phenomenon raises all the more ethical questions since it only favors white people at the expense of the others who feel let down on the other side of the wall.

“The example of Canyon Lake is striking given that black people only stand for 1.2% of the community. In 2001, in New York, the Gramercy Park case, highlighted how much racism we can find in these private districts. Local black children were not very welcome to come and play in the private park. When the residents were asked why some children could not, they answered without embarrassment: ‘The park is not meant for those children.’ Gated Community may have a new approach of ‘White Only’ with real walls to protect themselves from the African-American threat.

“Whether territorial, racial or social, segregation crossed a new threshold with Gated Communities. What future is there for American cities under these circumstances? Is public space doomed to turn into a giant ghetto for those who cannot afford the peacefulness of a detached house far from the dangers of the city? Las Vegas is a good example of what an American city could look like if the phenomenon of Gated Communities kept on sweeping the largest cities in the United States.”   Gated communities: the American dream behind walls by Laura Wojcik, Translated by Alice Robert (10/23/13).

Architectural committees often rule on design, colors, size and height. Some communities require a recommendation from an existing resident or an interview with a standing committee that actually checks references. Racism? Less affluent people simply cannot afford to think about this? These communities are designed to exclude “them”? Probably all of the above to one degree or another, but at the heart of this movement is a combination of fear with excess wealth.

Given the way the country is going, maybe that fear is justified. But what have we become as Americans where most of the wealth in this country is controlled by the one percent at the top? Has the American Dream become an American nightmare for at least half of us? That upward mobility has vaporized. Skilled blue-collar workers are relegated to the history books? College education requires outrageous debt for most of us?

I’m Peter Dekom, but the mere existence of such fortresses raises the ire of the masses of Americans who have been passed by… excluded by a world they no longer recognize.