Barrios cerrados en ciudades latinoamericanas.

Abstract

Urban space in many Latin American cities is proliferating these last decades in a gated community form, being defined as enclosed housing developments, with controlled access and security devices. The search for security, the contact with nature and exclusivity are some common features of these urbanizations. These features are usually presented by advertising agencies as vital needs for this modern society. Development of gated communities entails consequences associated with urban space fragmentation, privatization of public space, social segregation and lack of a community belonging sense; hence the need to question these types of developments and to intervene to modify them. Interventions, both aimed to redirect the emerging urban model and to carry out specific actions in the already existing gated communities, should bet on following traditional neighborhood models. This article pretends to analyze the gated communities’ phenomenon occurring in Latin America, detecting it consequences and proposing possible intervention measures.