Socio-Spatial Impact of enclosed urbanizations: The case of Buenos Aires' Metropolitan Region

Abstract

This paper deals with gated communities in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires (RMBA). It objective is understanding the socio-territorial impact of these developments at local, metropolitan and national levels. After some basics elements about the history of these communities and their important and recent growth in the RMBA, this mutation is analyzed according to three categories: the architectural and urban forms; the functions of this spaces and the practices they allow or provoke; and the kind of social relationships they create. For each of these three aspects, two different points of view are successively adopted: a look at the situation inside the gated community, and secondly, the changes that it creates for its surroundings and for the rest of the metropolis. Finally, the paper comes to the idea that those developments imply a deep mutation of the representations of the city for its residents: the rise of gated communities means a deep change in the idea that people have of what cities and urban life are and should be.

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