Behind the Gates

Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America

Bibliographic Data

ID19945568
AuthorsLow (0000-0003-1590-6342, corresponding author), Setha M Low, Setha Low
Year2004
Publication date2004-03-01
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueBehind the Gates (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780203491256
OpenAlexW4248399807
Open LibraryOL38751528M
ISBN9780203491256
LanguageEN
Citations received102

In the last twenty years, thousands upon thousands of the upper and middle classes have retreated into gated communities. In 2002 it is estimated that one in eight Americans will live in these exclusive neighborhoods. What has sparked this alarming trend?Behind the Gates is Low's revealing account of what life is like inside these suburban fortresses. After years researching and interviewing families in Long Island, New York and San Antonio, Texas, Low provides an inside view of gated communities to help explain why people flee to these enclaves. Parents with children, young married couples, "empty-nesters," and retirees express their need for safety, their secret fears of a more ethnically diverse America, and their desire to recapture the close-knit, picket-fenced communities of their childhood. Ironically, she shows, gated neighborhoods are in fact no safer than other suburbs, and many who move there are disheartened by the insularity and restrictive rules of the community.Low probes the hopes, dreams, and fears of her subjects to portray the subtle change in American middle-class values marked by the emergence of enclosed communities in the suburbs

Computer Science · Place Attachment and Urban Studies · Urban Planning and Governance · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies · Beveiliging · Bostäder · Communauté · Communautés privées · Community life · Essays · Gated communities · Human Geography · Isolation · Nachbarschaft · New York Times reviewed · Openbare veiligheid · Privatleben · Social Science · Social sciences · Sociala aspekter · united states · Wonen · Woonwijken