Gated cities of today? Barricaded residential development in England

This paper reports on research which examined the prevalence and rationales underlying the growth in gated residential development in England. The research also set out to consider the immediate and likely future impacts of such development. Policy debates regarding socio-spatial segregation and the encouragement of social mix to promote sustainable communities have generally ignored the upper end of the housing market and clustering of affluent households which are perceived to produce few negative externalities or problems for residents. We argue that gated development appears to provide a socially problematic form of residential development which `excludes' but nevertheless, in certain cases, appears to deliver a semi-autonomous form of neighbourhood governance. The research found around 1,000 gated developments in England at a time when the Government aims for new development to provide socially diverse neighbourhoods as the hallmark of future community sustainability. We conclude that this initial profiling of gated communities highlights the need for a debate regarding the relative social costs and benefits imposed by gating.