Theoretical framework of gated communities in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Gated communities are a rapidly growing global residential occurrence and thelong-term impact of this phenomenon on the urban landscape is of greatimportance to planners, local and provincial governments, urban decisionmakers,and legislation policies. The assignment is a comprehensive literaturestudy, because in South Africa only the CSIR (BOUTEK) recently attempted toexplain this fairly new development type. Internationally extensive studies havebeen conducted in the USA and Europe, although only in the last decade.In the study the term gated community is conceptualised, the generalcharacteristics of gated communities, the pros and cons of the enclosedcommunities are discussed. The discussion focuses on the postmodern theorymovement and how it relates to gated communities, with examples from theUSA, especially Los Angeles. Additionally, the history of gated communities isdiscussed from Greek times to modern times and an overview is given of theinternational debate on gated communities. The debate emphasises importantissues such as safety and security, exclusion, privacy, urban fragmentation andother issues.The last chapter looks at the current situation of gated communities in SouthAfrica and the effect that apartheid had on the urban structure. Gatedcommunities in South Africa are unique compared to other countries and asummary is given on the positive and negative features of gated communities inSouth Africa. The fear of crime is growing in South Africa, and the number ofgated communities or enclosed neighbourhoods are growing daily, and calls forin-depth studies of this phenomenon in South Africa. Although there seems tobe an increasing trend in larger cities to enclose areas, requests forneighbourhood enclosures have also been received by smaller cities and towns.Most of the metropolitan areas tend to have policies in place, or are in theprocess of compiling policies to regulate road closures and gated communities.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University