Residential Enclaves Research Articles

Gated communities as new forms of segregation in post-socialist Budapest

In the cities of East Central Europe high-status gated residential enclaves emerged after the collapse of communism symbolizing the new dimensions of social segregation brought about by the post-socialist transition. Due to the highly liberalised housing market and the infiltration of global capital the proliferation of gated neighbourhoods became possible. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of gated communities in Hungary in general and in Budapest in particular. To find out the driving forces behind the gating phenomenon we apply the case study approach analysing the development of a typical gated neighbourhood in one of the suburban settlements of Budapest. During the research special emphasis has been placed on the attitude and behaviour of three types of stakeholders: the developers, local government and the homeowners. The Magdolna-völgy gated community reflects the contradictions that have characterised the transition of Hungary from single-party communist system to neo-liberal capitalism since 1990. The weak position of local municipalities as opposed to real estate developers can be related to the decentralised, deregulated public administration system and the laissez fair attitude of neo-liberal state. Gated neighbourhoods became symbols of polarisation and conflict within local societies. The case study demonstrates that the affluent section of society can efficiently segregate themselves from the rest of people, and can successfully privatise public spaces and create safe and privately controlled spaces behind the fences.

Consuming private security: Consumer citizenship and defensive urbanism in Singapore

Recent scholarship in criminology has suggested that we are witnessing the emergence of an uneven patchwork of urban policing and security provision, increasingly determined by the ability and willingness of consumers to pay for private security goods and services. In particular, it has been argued that the commodification of urban policing and private security has given rise to new forms of ‘consumer citizenship’ and identity and alongside these, the creation of new secured spaces of consumption. This article seeks to examine one specific manifestation of such a security product—the gated community. While the proliferation of gated communities and the frantic construction of such ‘architecture of fear’ (Ellin, 1997) have often been associated with an American-style ‘defensive urbanism’, the emergence of such security-enhanced urban landscapes is invariably time and place specific. Using the context of Singapore, a city-state with strong state control and relatively low crime rate, the article traces the development of such enclosed residential enclaves to show how the rise of private policing and security are bound up in the creation of fortified residential spaces in which an exclusive social-spatial order comes to be defined and enforced.

Evolving enclave urbanism in China and its socio-spatial implications: the case of Guangzhou

Enclave urbanism has deep historical roots in China, from the earliest forms of enclave residence, i.e. the walled city and courtyard housing, to the contemporary intricate mosaic of enclaves comprising danwei (work unit) compounds, gated commodity housing estates and migrant enclaves. Yet the evolution of enclave urbanism is not simply a convergence with Western urban forms, nor is it a process of historical succession or cultural inertia. The story of enclave urbanism is far more complicated. Exploring China's evolving urban enclaves and their socio-economic implications would add much richness and diversity to the international debates on enclave urbanism. The first half of the paper discusses the evolving processes and dynamics of China's enclave urbanism, with special reference to Guangzhou. The complex dynamics of China's enclave urbanism are evolving around various socio-economic, cultural, institutional and political forces, within which institutional arrangements for urban spatial organisation and social control are playing a fundamental role. To present a fuller picture of the plural socio-spatial connotations of China's enclave urbanism, the second half of the paper unpacks the heterogeneity of urban fabrics and examines how different social groups perceive and represent the social aspects of their lives. Featuring a high degree of heterogeneity within and between different types of neighbourhoods, enclave urbanism in China has entailed a complex relationship between urban form and social fabric. In addition, for various social groups, urban enclave living is endowed with very different social meanings. In gated commodity housing estates, enclave living is an expression of a safe, high-quality and privileged lifestyle. In urban villages, it is a compromise choice involving makeshift urban living resulting from suppressed rights to the city. And, in danwei compounds, it is a lingering lifestyle to which people used to be collectively assigned with no exercise of their own choice and from which they are now emotionally estranged.

The Sense of Place behind Segregating Practices: An Ethnographic Approach to the Symbolic Partitioning of Metro Manila

The literature on cities in the developing world equates segregation with the proliferation of enclaves and slums and tends to overlook how the people associated with those places are further segregated in public spaces and enclaves. To account for the symbolic partitioning of Metro Manila, I document the segregating practices of the residents of enclaves (villagers) and slums (squatters). These practices reveal a well-developed sense of place on both sides, a commitment to the relative status positioning of the two groups as expressed through their separation in space. A sense of place explains why squatters and villagers engage in segregating practices. It also enables us to identify other spatial practices that conform to or challenge its logic. Integrating practices are largely consistent with a sense of place, while desegregating practices challenge it and may set up or advance contentious situations. By using this approach we are better able to understand how class patterns of residential segregation are extended to encompass virtually all urban spaces where class interaction occurs.

Curbing the power of developers? Law and power in Chinese and English gated urban enclaves

This article contributes to the legal geography literature through exploration of the contested concepts of power and law and their interconnected processes. Research findings from studies of urban gated enclaves in China and in England are used as a starting point to analyse the spatialisation of power in the creation of gated urban enclaves, with a particular focus on the role of law. Four categories of law are identified. The article suggests an analytical framework for understanding how particular modalities of power intersect with these different types of law. This framework is then applied to temporal stages in the creation of gated enclaves, in the context of the different legal geographies of China and England. In the final analysis, the manipulative power of neoliberalism outweighs law’s authority, for example when developers form alliances with municipal government to circumvent ‘policy’ and ‘regulatory’ law. Property rights as conceptualised through ‘high’ law are shown to be ineffective in resolving problems experienced by residents of specific enclaves, particularly those relating to common property rights. Developers were found to use ‘facilitative’ law to gain control of the juridical field, materialised through property rights allocation and resolution of disputes within urban enclaves.

A Universidade Federal do Recôncavo como política de desenvolvimento regional no espaço intraurbano de Santo Antônio de Jesus

Este artigo discute os efeitos da implantação do campus da Universidade Federal do Recôncavo (UFRB) em Santo Antônio de Jesus-BA. Para tanto, utilizou-se a bibliografia pertinente e material iconográfico. Teoricamente, foi usada uma perspectiva multiescalar, analisando o desenvolvimento de Santo Antônio de Jesus no contexto de sua região, o Recôncavo. Demonstrou-se como Santo Antônio de Jesus tem sua evolução associada a essa região. Paralelamente, mostrou-se como a ação hegemônica se cumpre fragmentadora ao longo de diversos momentos, sempre relacionados a uma pretensa modernização da região. Também se discutiu a implantação da UFRB como um projeto de desenvolvimento regional e se analisaram os reflexos de sua implantação no espaço intraurbano de Santo Antônio de Jesus. Verificou-se a fragmentação intensificada do espaço intraurbano gerado, também, a partir de uma ação hegemônica que se realiza desigual e estimula o surgimento de novas dinâmicas. Graças à UFRB apareceu uma população imigrante, com características específicas, e surgiram novos espaços, alguns deles autossegregados, ampliando o número de enclaves residenciais. Problematizaram-se as possíveis novas dinâmicas que derivam desse estado de coisas e suas possíveis consequências, visto que o processo em análise ainda não se consumou.
 
 Abstract
 
 THE FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF THE RECÔNCAVO LIKE REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY IN THE INTRA-URBAN SPACE OF SANTO ANTÔNIO DE JESUS
 
 This article discusses the consequences of building the campus of the University of Recôncavo (UFRB) in Santo Antonio de Jesus, Bahia. Thus, the relevant literature and iconographic material were used. Theoretically a multi-scale perspective was taken, examining the development of Santo Antonio de Jesus in the context of its region, the Recôncavo. It was demonstrated how Santo Antonio de Jesus has its evolution associated with this region. In parallel it was showed how a fragmenting hegemonic power is accomplished over several times, always related to an alleged modernization of the region. It was also discussed the deployment of UFRB as a regional development project and analyzed the consequences of their deployment in intra-urban space of Santo Antonio de Jesus. It was verified the intensified fragmentation of the space generated intra-urban also a hegemonic action that takes place unevenly and encourages the emergence of new dynamics in the interior.

Re-shaping Jerusalem: The transformation of Jerusalem’s metropolitan area by the Israeli barrier

The paper analyses the territorial implications of the Israeli barrier/wall with reference to the metropolitan area of Jerusalem. The thesis argued is that the barrier continues both the ‘Judaisation’ and ‘de-Arabisation’ process of the city implemented by the Israeli authorities since 1967 and mainly practiced through urban policies. However, unlike these latter, it does not primarily affect the demographic composition of the city, but the spatial conformation of the metropolitan area; its political aim is to create a ‘Greater Jewish Jerusalem’ composed of the city and the three main blocks of Israeli settlements close to the municipal borders. In pursuit of (and in order to pursue) this aim, the barrier breaks down the Arab metropolitan system, which closely combines East Jerusalem and the West Bank suburbs. The consequence will be the probable atrophy of Arab Jerusalem, which will be reduced to a series of residential enclaves in an alien space.

An Immigrant Neighborhood: Interethnic and Interracial Encounters in New York before 1930

The immigrant residential enclaves in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century are often portrayed in literature and remembered in the popular imagination as places where newcomers lived, worked, socialized, and worshipped with those from the same home country, region, or ethnic group. Yet as Shirley J. Yee reminds us, to leave the narrative at that is to miss part of the story. In this highly readable book, she explores the relationships that developed across ethnic lines in lower Manhattan neighborhoods during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in a range of social and economic contexts from shops and tenements to schools, missions, saloons, and settlement houses. Some of these interethnic and interracial relations were fleeting and superficial; others were of greater consequence. They emerged, she notes, out of necessity—conducting business, finding employment, caring for the sick, burying the dead—as much as out of personal desire.

Narrating boundaries: Framing and contesting suffering, community, and belonging in enclaves along the India–Bangladesh border

This paper explores the politics of community making at the India–Bangladesh border by examining the public and private narratives of history and belonging in a Bangladeshi enclave—a sovereign piece of Bangladesh completely territorially surrounded by India. Drawing on framings of political society, this paper argues that understanding populations at the margins of South Asia and beyond requires attention to two processes: first, to the ways that para-legal activities are part and parcel of daily life; and second, to the strategies through which these groups construct themselves as moral communities deserving of inclusion within the state. Border communities often articulate narratives of dispossession, exceptionality, and marginalization to researchers and other visitors—narratives that are often unproblematically reproduced in academic treatments of the border. However, such articulations mask both the complicated histories and quotidian realities of border life. This paper views these articulations as political projects in and of themselves. By reading the more hidden histories of life in this border enclave, this article reconstructs the notion of borders as experienced by enclave residents themselves. It shows the ways that the politics of the India–Bangladesh border are constitutive of (and constituted by) a range of fractures and internal boundaries within the enclave. These boundaries are as central to forging community—to articulating who belongs and why—as are more public narratives that frame enclave residents as victims of confused territorial configurations.

Gated barriadas: Responses to urban insecurity in marginal settlements in Lima, Peru

The explosive growth of so‐called marginal settlements in Latin America's cities has received considerable academic attention in past decades. The inability of the state to adequately provide affordable housing for a rapidly growing urban population has meant that these neighbourhoods relied on community mobilization to achieve common objectives of basic infrastructure and legal recognition. With increasing consolidation and less need for coordinated action, many local organizations lost their rationale. Fear of crime and violence, a major concern in Latin American metropolises, is inscribed on the urban landscape by a growing number of gated and fortified residential enclaves for the better‐off. Marginal neighbourhoods, however, experience a ‘security gap’ as they receive insufficient police protection and lack the financial resources to employ private guards. In many cases, the real or perceived insecurities of inner‐city life have prompted organized bottom‐up, mostly informal and sometimes vigilante, responses. Drawing on research on the rise of informal security‐related interventions in the neighbourhoods of Lima Metropolitana, Peru, this paper explores the rationales underlying the different approaches and adoptions, including the involvement of the main actors, community associations and other local interest groups.

Enclave Urbanism In China: Consequences and Interpretations

Following reforms enacted since the late 1970s, domestic and foreign investments are resulting in a dramatic transformation of China's landscape. The concentrated Maoist city with its cellular multifunctional work-unit structure is disappearing. In its place, cities now emerge as patchworks of mono-functional and mono-cultural enclaves, often demarcated by walls and gates. Based on experiences elsewhere, urban theorists criticize such segregated and gated developments because they threaten social integration and social justice. Focusing on residential enclaves, this introductory article considers the relevance of this criticism for urban China. It is argued that residential enclaves might indeed produce substantial negative effects. However, the materialization of these effects depends on local spatial and social realities. Thus an adequate interpretation of Chinese enclave urbanism necessitates the answering of a number of empirical questions. Among the most prominent are: Does the private provision of services in China lead to or exacerbate exclusion? Do residential enclaves limit contacts among groups? And how do various social groups perceive walls and gates in urban China?

Sex and the community: the implications of neighbourhoods and social networks for sexual risk behaviours among urban gay men

Gay neighbourhoods have historically served as vital places for gay socialising, and gay social networks are important sources of social support. Yet, few studies have examined the influence of these forms of community on sexual health. Informed by theoretical frameworks on neighbourhoods and networks, we employ multi-level modelling to test hypotheses concerning whether gay neighbourhoods and social network factors are associated with five sexual risk behaviours: receptive and insertive unprotected anal intercourse (UAI), barebacking identity, recent internet use for finding sexual partners, and 'Party and Play' (PnP). Our analyses of a community-based sample of gay men in New York City reveal little evidence for the direct effect of gay enclaves on sexual risk with the exception of PnP, which was more likely among gay enclave residents. Having a network composed predominantly of other gay men was associated with insertive UAI, PnP, and internet use for meeting sexual partners. This network type also mediated the association between gay neighbourhoods and higher odds of insertive UAI as well as PnP. Our findings highlight the sexual health implications of two important facets of gay community and, in doing so, indicate the need to better contextualise the sexual health risks faced by gay men.

Disparities in Liver Cancer Incidence by Nativity, Acculturation, and Socioeconomic Status in California Hispanics and Asians

Asians and Hispanics have the highest incidence rates of liver cancer in the United States, but little is known about how incidence patterns in these largely immigrant populations vary by nativity, acculturation, and socioeconomic status (SES). Such variations can identify high-priority subgroups for prevention and monitoring. Incidence rates and rate ratios (IRR) by nativity among 5,400 Hispanics and 5,809 Asians diagnosed with liver cancer in 1988-2004 were calculated in the California Cancer Registry. Neighborhood ethnic enclave status and SES were classified using 2000 U.S. Census data for cases diagnosed in 1998-2002. Foreign-born Hispanic males had significantly lower liver cancer incidence rates than U.S.-born Hispanic males in 1988-2004 (e.g., IRR = 0.54, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.50-0.59 in 1997-2004), whereas foreign-born Hispanic females had significantly higher rates in 1988-1996 (IRR = 1.42, 95% CI = 1.18-1.71), but not 1997-2004. Foreign-born Asian males and females had up to 5-fold higher rates than the U.S.-born. Among Hispanic females, incidence rates were elevated by 21% in higher-enclave versus lower-enclave neighborhoods, and by 24% in lower- versus higher-SES neighborhoods. Among Asian males, incidence rates were elevated by 23% in higher-enclave neighborhoods and by 21% in lower-SES neighborhoods. In both racial/ethnic populations, males and females in higher-enclave, lower-SES neighborhoods had higher incidence rates. Nativity, residential enclave status, and neighborhood SES characterize Hispanics and Asians with significantly unequal incidence rates of liver cancer, implicating behavioral or environmental risk factors and revealing opportunities for prevention. Liver cancer control efforts should especially target foreign-born Asians, U.S.-born Hispanic men, and residents of lower-SES ethnic enclaves.

Reproducing Difference: Gated Communities in Canada and Israel

Historical and cultural studies of residential enclaves reveal the range of patterns within a phenomenon that some have treated essentially as the result of contemporary neoliberal conditions. Gated and enclosed communities are by no means new, nor are they the product of universal principles or circumstances. Among other things, they reflect historical conditions, contemporary concerns, cultural ambitions and inter-group dynamics. Based largely on comparisons of national inventories of gated communities in Israel and Canada, this article explores some of the articulations and functions of enclosure. It illuminates the contrasts within a set of historic and contemporary enclosed and segregated settlements, and seeks to develop a framework to account for the range of patterns found and some of the motivations behind them. While many enclaves in Israel feature extensive security measures that include armed guards, Canadian gated communities typically use weak devices such as low fences. The patterns employed to mark difference reinforce divergent social conditions and generate varying spatial consequences. The comparison reveals variations in who produces enclosure, how, and for what purposes.

Cul-de-sacs, Superblocks and Environmental Areas as Supports of Residential Territorialization

In the suburbs, residential territorialization is most often associated with common interest developments, homeowners' associations, gated communities and sociospatial segregation. These forms of territorialization have been the subject of many critical analyses by the academic community. These criticisms, however, frequently discount the significance of the road network layout. This paper shows that cul-de-sacs, superblocks and 'environmental areas' are key factors. It provides support to the hypothesis that exclusionary residential territories exist along a continuum, ranging from no-through streets, superblocks, environmental areas, gated communities and privately managed communities. The creation of two cul-de-sacs facing each other can thus be compared to the erection of a barrier in the middle of a street open to through-traffic. Similarly, environmental areas function as residential enclaves.

The Effect of Enclave Residence on the Labour Force Activities of Immigrants in Canada

It has been well documented that immigrants' clustering of residence in large cities has been associated with the creation of a number of ethnic enclaves. The intensive exposure to own-ethnic population could affect immigrant labour market involvement positively or negatively. However, no extant Canadian research has provided empirical evidence on the sign of these enclave effects. In this paper, I use the 1981-2001 Censuses to estimate the impact of residence in ethnic enclaves on male immigrants' labour force participation rate and employment probability. For recent immigrants who arrived in Canada within the preceding ten years, the intensity of enclave residence is negatively associated with their labour force participation rate, but positively related to their employment probability in all censuses. However, living in an enclave has no significant effect on the labour force activity of older immigrants who have lived in Canada for more than twenty years. Since immigrants could be attracted to areas with more job opportunities and hence enlarge the size of an enclave, the estimated effects from probit regressions might be positively biased. I then use instrumental variable (IV) method to address this endogeneity problem, and the IV estimates are consistent with the probit regression results.

Age at Arrival, English Proficiency, and Social Assimilation Among US Immigrants

Are U.S. immigrants' English proficiency and social outcomes the result of their cultural preferences, or of more fundamental constraints? Using 2000 Census microdata, we relate immigrants' English proficiency, marriage, fertility and residential location variables to their age at arrival in the U.S., and in particular whether that age fell within the "critical period" of language acquisition. We interpret the differences between younger and older arrivers as effects of English-language skills and construct an instrumental variable for English-language skills. Two-stage-least-squares estimates suggest that English proficiency increases the likelihood of divorce and intermarriage. It decreases fertility and, for some, ethnic enclave residence. (JEL J24, J12, J13, J61).

Another Mexican birthweight paradox? The role of residential enclaves and neighborhood poverty in the birthweight of Mexican-origin infants

Examining whether contextual factors influence the birth outcomes of Mexican-origin infants in the US may contribute to assessing rival explanations for the so-called Mexican health paradox. We examined whether birthweight among infants born to Mexican-origin women in the US was associated with Mexican residential enclaves and exposure to neighborhood poverty, and whether these associations were modified by nativity (i.e. mother's place of birth). We calculated metropolitan indices of neighborhood exposure to Mexican-origin population and poverty for the Mexican-origin population, and merged with individual-level, year 2000 natality data (n=490,332). We distinguished between neighborhood exposure to US-born Mexican-origin population (i.e. ethnic enclaves) and neighborhood exposure to foreign-born (i.e. Mexico-born) Mexican-origin population (i.e. immigrant enclaves). We used 2-level hierarchical linear regression models adjusting for individual, metropolitan, and regional covariates and stratified by nativity. We found that living in metropolitan areas with high residential segregation of US-born Mexican-origin residents (i.e. high prevalence of ethnic enclaves) was associated with lower birthweight for infants of US-born Mexican-origin mothers before and after covariate adjustment. When simultaneously adjusting for exposure to ethnic and immigrant enclaves, the latter became positively associated with birthweight and the negative effect of the former increased, among US-born mothers. We found no contextual birthweight associations for mothers born in Mexico in adjusted models. Our findings highlight a differential effect of context by nativity, and the potential health effects of ethnic enclaves, which are possibly a marker of downward assimilation, among US-born Mexican-origin women.

Identity and Representations of Gated Communities in Bangalore, India

Gated communities, residential enclaves that offer upscale housing and a variety of recreational and communal facilities within a walled area with controlled entrances, are proliferating in many of India's large metropolitan cities. In this paper, we analyze the images of place and identity that are evoked in online advertisements for gated communities in the city of Bangalore in southern India. Since the 1990s, Bangalore has become known as India's premier information technology (IT) hub and a magnet for multinational corporations and high-skill personnel. The latter include Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) who lived and worked abroad for several years and have returned to partake of new opportunities offered in the country. We explore the intersection of notions of identity, home and community in a globalised world through an examination of the graphic and textual images encoded in the advertisements of thirteen prominent developers in Bangalore whose upscale gated developments cater to NRIs. The advertisements depict high-end gated communities as places of luxury, exclusiveness, high security and convenience which also offer a range of recreational facilities for individuals and families. Additionally, those who live in the gated enclaves are portrayed as persons of distinction and class who are global and cosmopolitan in their outlook and identity.

Ethnic enclave residence, employment, and commuting of Latino workers

AbstractThis paper examines the impact of living in ethnic enclaves in different parts of a metropolitan area on low‐skilled Latino immigrants' employment accessibility. It does so by comparing the employment status and commuting times of Latinos living in and out of ethnic neighborhoods in central city, inner‐ring suburbs, and outer‐ring suburbs in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. Using the 2000 Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), this paper finds that central‐city residents tend to have both lower employment probability and longer commutes. The enclave effect is much muted and a spatial mismatch effect evident in these areas. But in the suburban areas, while as likely to work as non‐enclave counterparts, enclave residents tend to commute longer to jobs, suggesting the importance of ethnic networks in these enclave neighborhoods. Further distinguishing Latino immigrants by gender shows that women are more enclave‐disadvantaged than men. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.