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Original poster

Gated developments - where do you stand on these?

42 replies

Cloudhopper · 08/02/2007 10:59

Many new developments are springing up in our neighbourhood, as I imagine is happening in a lot of places. I've noticed a real trend towards gated developments and hefty security.

This is a fairly low crime area, with no commonplace vandalism or social disorder that I can detect.

I went past yet another gated estate the other day and felt a sense of alienation from the residents. Am I the sort of person they are trying to keep out?

I think that developers are just trying to maximise profit, and if gates do this and they are allowed to build them, then they will.

How does everyone else feel about having these on the doorstep? Is it an understandable reaction to increasing social alienation or is it just a reflection of the increasing stratification of our society?

OP posts:
morocco · 08/02/2007 11:04

I wish we had gates. ours is the style of gated but they never bothered to install the gates. my car window got smashed last weekend and it's too expensive to bother replacing. As it was joyriders (but duhh it's an automatic and about a million years old with nothing of value apart from wellies in it) they wouldn't have bothered if we'd had gates up, I imagine.

mind you, th ones that make me laugh are near where my mil lives in the middle of the cheshire set. tacky new builds worth a quarter of the price of all surrounding mansions and they've put gates up - keeping the riffraff out or in, I always wonder

CountessDracula · 08/02/2007 11:05

I think they are to protect the rest of us from the paranoid freaks who live in them

Original poster
Cloudhopper · 08/02/2007 11:08

You see, I could imagine there would be places where gates could be a good thing - like retirement homes where the people living there have a real fear of being mugged, or in areas where there is very very high crime.

But the addition of gates in an otherwise fairly wealthy area with low crime strikes me as posturing for posturing sake.

OP posts:
nailpolish · 08/02/2007 11:08

ive been to a couple in America and it was full of people who dont live in the real world. People who cross the street to avoid "youngsters", who think every young male is out to nick their wallet, and every young female is a tart

they came across and quite bigotted "them and us" "youre not from round here" etc

it got right on my nerves

leave them to it i say, but dont include me

aDad · 08/02/2007 11:09

I stand outside the gate peeping in counting the fancy cars

winterpimms · 08/02/2007 11:12

Very Stepford wives!

Celebration in Orlando isn't exactly gated but it is weird!

chocolatebirdy · 08/02/2007 11:16

On the poor side!!

Original poster
Cloudhopper · 08/02/2007 11:47

Me too chocolatebirdy.

Probably explains my opposition....

OP posts:
southeastastra · 08/02/2007 11:49

we have tons of them here. they're for snobs who are too scared to live in the real world

scatterbrain · 08/02/2007 11:53

Aha - so I am a snob and a paranoid freak !!

I didn't choose it because it had gates by the way !!

Slinks off to sulk.......

Cappuccino · 08/02/2007 11:56

a bloke I know said that if he ever wins the lottery he is going to buy a house in a gated development

and then put an old Chrysler on bricks outside his house

and buy some mangy dogs and put them on leads attached to a chain outside

Original poster
Cloudhopper · 08/02/2007 12:52

Maybe it is just a reasonable response to the increasing traffic on the roads and the perceived 'stranger danger'. It certainly means you can let your kids play outside?

Mind you, what if the other residents object to kids hanging around?

OP posts:
BikeBug · 08/02/2007 13:04

There's a new gated development of six 'executive Barrats' at the top of my parent's road. It's a lovely, quiet, tree-lined dead-end road in a low-crime area of a beautiful city. I can't understand it at all - it seems to be everything that 'neighbourly' isn't - a huge 'bugger off' to everyone else in the road. Still, the houses (the build quality of which is not impressive) go for hugely inflated prices, so someone must want gates even if it isn't the people who live round and about...

homemama · 08/02/2007 13:28

Lol at 'executive Barrats'. Is that building speak for, 'we'll charge you a fortune but they're still cheap and nasty.'

nailpolish · 08/02/2007 13:32

re: letting your kids play outside

just because someone has enough money to buy a posh house doesnt mean they wont abduct your child

tsk

unless residents have to complete a disclosure....

nailpolish · 08/02/2007 13:34

there is a village in N Scotland that doesnt allow anyone under retirement age (or thereabouts) to buy property there

and NO children whatsoever - grandchildren are allowed to visit their grandparents who live there 2-4pm on a Sunday or something ridiculous, and you are not allowed to start your car between the hours of 10pm and 8am

!

homemama · 08/02/2007 13:36

Np, your post reminds me of the disclosure you have to sign on entering the US;
Do you intend to enter the United States with the intention of commiting a terroist act?

nailpolish · 08/02/2007 13:37

LOL

Jimjams2 · 08/02/2007 13:38

I'd quite like a gated development if it was quite small- would be far safer for ds1.

nailpolish · 08/02/2007 13:39

WHY would it be safer?

your neighbours could still be the neighbours from hell

(or do you mean about the traffic?)

Original poster
Cloudhopper · 08/02/2007 13:39

NP, that very thought did cross my mind as I walked past the latest sinister gated estate.

OP posts:
sauce · 08/02/2007 13:41

My mother & stepdad live in one in Vancouver. They bought the place because they liked the view, etc. not because it's gated. I think it depends on how dangerous your neighborhood might be and/or how paranoid you are rather than social isolation.

fannyannie · 08/02/2007 13:41

oh blimey I so miss gated houses. To not have a gated (with 8ft high - minimum - wall/fence) was pretty unusual in Zimbabwe - even in the lower crime areas - didn't cause any alienation that I noticed.

BikeBug · 08/02/2007 13:43

'executive Barrat' = 4+ bed new-build of dubious quality, excess of en-suite bathrooms.

I was introduced to the idea by an old colleague who had house-shopped in the early '80's and been horrified by the developers using undersized furniture and removing interior doors to make their (expensive!) new houses seem more spacious.

I think it is probably more dangerous to let your kids play in one of these gated compounds because they often don't seem to have pavements, just one huge block-paved car park...

Jimjams2 · 08/02/2007 13:43

Because we live in constant fear of him escaping the house or garden- and being knocked over. We've just rebuilt our garden fence but I'm not convinved they'll keep him in for much more than a year or so. Getting him from the car to the front door is a bloody nightmare (and can be impossible if I have ds3 as well and have to park up the road). We live in a city street that people drive too fast up.

He's coming home in an hour or so, back gate is open (workmen), and the workman has his power tools plugged in in the room leading to the garden. God knows how I'll kep him in- would be slightly less of a worry in a gated development.