Exgated: Intervention to mitigate the impact of the Mexican gated communities over territories and cities Academic Article in Scopus uri icon

abstract

  • © 2019 WIT Press The controlled access developments have become the most popular way of living for the vast majority in Mexico. The increasing wave of insecurity is supposedly one of the main factors that causes the demand of these model of settlements. The proposed research focuses on distinguishing the different features and problematics that can be found in this kind of neighborhoods. The investigation takes as main frame the gated communities and the implications they have on cities, societies, cultures and citizens. For the purposes of this investigation, it is considered as ¿gated community¿ any neighborhood with restricted entry, security personnel and surrounding walls. In León, Guanajuato (Mexico), where the investigation takes place approximately the 30% of the whole consolidated area of the city is currently occupied by closed communities. A significant number of them is located all around the periphery of the municipality. The conflicts generated by the controlled access communities in León are plenty: the most notorious ones are the social polarization and the increasing of dependency on motorized transit to get around. In fact, the segregation of the neighborhoods interrupts roads and prevents communication between different parts of the city. The goal of the research is to get to a point of understanding the state of the art of the relation between city, communities and closed neighborhoods. Afterwards, the proposal of a radical physical set of interventions to mitigate the current problems is presented. The methods to obtain relevant information to nourish the research were varied: from the analysis of local papers, articles and study cases, to qualitative social research, acknowledging the diverse perspectives that people from distinct backgrounds and neighborhood could have about the phenomenon of Mexican gated communities.

publication date

  • January 1, 2018