I lived in a gated community from age 11 through moving out for college and it’s BS. All it does is make it difficult for people to visit. And I suppose you have to pay for an HOA but I was a kid and didn’t know about all that. My neighborhood was pretty diverse though.
Gated communities and Homeowners Associations were originally invented to keep black and hispanic people out. Simple as that. They are still used as tools of segregation from a paranoid populace.
I really struggle to understand the purpose of gated communities. As a workmen type dude who has regularly had to go into these places, every time I’m stuck at a gate calling someone to open up, without fail someone else waiting behind me will buzz me in no questions asked. Also usually nothing stopping you from walking around the gate, sure you can’t bring a car in, but other than that nothing stopping you.
Once they couldn’t do redlining anymore, racist homeowners decided to sequester themselves and set up little clubs where they can control who moves into the neighborhood…or at least pressure less desirable folk into leaving.
Randoms don’t wander in. There is, at the minimum, an illusion of security with a security guard.
Security is security: the more you have, the more difficult target you look. It doesn’t necessarily make you safer, but the illusion exists on both sides.
There is also more legal protection from trespassing. It isn’t illegal to be on a public road or sidewalk in a neighborhood you don’t live in, and you can’t be trespassed unless you commit a crime. If the road and sidewalk are privately owned they can tell you to leave for any/no reason.
Unless the neighborhood is actually paying for a living human to stand guard, it’s just a premium for the illusion of security. They just want to feel like the “others” can’t just waltz in.
It’s called response effort. The idea is that an action in particular is less likely to occur because it’s more effort than you’re motivated to spend in that moment.
Ever have a few things you could easily do, you’ve done them before, you’ll do them again another time, but that one time the extra steps make it not worth the effort?
It works a surprisingly large amount of the time especially where impulsive behavior is concerned.
Similar thing with locking our doors etc however there are additional motivational forces at play. Yeah they aren’t vaults, but if this one is locked and barricaded and it’ll take 10 minutes to negotiate vs the next one down being open…it’s an easy choice.
Your probably white. They weren’t made to keep you out.
What would it take for this annotation to be reversed?
Not much.
