Abstract
The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have influenced the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989. The focus is on how government policy with regard to spatial planning and housing, together with the law on property and ownership, influences the emergence and development of gated forms of housing in the country. Legal regulation documents concerning issues of housing and spatial planning between 1990 and 2013 have been studied. The article argues that the liberal policies and legal regulation in the country is resulting in a disregard for spatial planning and housing, but also the lack of integrated urban policies. Existing spatial plans are of a consultative nature and bear no regulatory capacity, at the same time as housing programmes and spatial planning in the country is strongly in favor of private investors and new construction. All these shortcomings have created a differentiated housing market, one in which housing developers maximize their profits by constructing gated housing complexes, combined with a tendency among those who have the means to move to newly built housing behind gates. The long period of developer-friendly policies and governmental support of purchasers of new construction, have resulted in increased popularity of gated communities in Poland and their spread to many Polish cities.
Highlights
Wherever it has occurred around the globe, the rise of enclosed and gated residential housing has aroused strong feelings
The aim of this article is to investigate regulations regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have affected the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989
The aim of this article has been to examine the regulation regarding housing and spatial planning to determine the extent to which these have affected the development of gated housing in Poland since 1989
Summary
Wherever it has occurred around the globe, the rise of enclosed and gated residential housing has aroused strong feelings. These forms of housing are not unique to the times in which we live; nor has it been determined that they emerge in specific types of societies. Already in ancient cities and during the Middle Ages, the existence of towns and settlements was dependent on the walls and gates that encircled them. Ancient forms of gated cities encompassed whole towns and today’s gated residential complexes encompass groups of people with same class characteristics having access to private services provided by their place of residence. Today’s gated communities are in the words of Atkinson a sign of ‘‘a deepening physicality to existing levels of segregation’’ within cities (2008: 3)
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