IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v38y2011i5p757-775.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Characteristics and Tradeoffs of Households Choosing to Live in Gated Communities

Author

Listed:
  • Pnina O Plaut

    (Faculty for Architecture and Town Planning, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel)

Abstract

Gated communities have grown in importance in the United States in recent years and they are also common in many other countries. Relatively little is known about the factors and tradeoffs associated with the preferences of households to live in such communities. There is a popular perception of gated communities being refuges for higher income and higher status predominantly white households in the United States but this appears to be largely incorrect. The profile of those who live in gated communities is the focus of this study. Homeowners living in gated communities are analyzed separately from renters, and are compared with those living in nongated communities, with special attention to location within the metropolitan statistical area and housing features. The factors that affect their respective decisions appear to be different. Residence in gated communities is ‘purchased’ both in the form of higher prices and rents, but also in the form of trading off some housing features, such as settling for smaller units with fewer bedrooms, for ‘gatedness’. The role of other factors in affecting likelihood of living in gated communities, including income, education, and some other factors associated with socioeconomic status, is explored using logit analysis. Those living in the urban subregions of the metropolitan statistical areas (the central city and secondary cities) have the highest likelihood of choosing gated communities, other things being equal. Somewhat surprisingly, people do not seem to be choosing gated communities in order to shorten their commuting distances. Despite the media stereotypes, racial minorities are often over-represented in gated communities for all minority groups for both forms of housing tenure (ownership and renting). Income disparities between whites and blacks are generally narrower within gated communities than they are outside of them. Within racial groups, income diversity, as measured by standard deviations, is greater in gated communities than outside of them, indicating greater heterogeneity.

Suggested Citation

  • Pnina O Plaut, 2011. "The Characteristics and Tradeoffs of Households Choosing to Live in Gated Communities," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 38(5), pages 757-775, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:38:y:2011:i:5:p:757-775
    DOI: 10.1068/b36091
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b36091
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/b36091?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert H. Nelson, 2006. "New Community Associations for Established Neighborhoods," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 23(6), pages 1123-1141, November.
    2. John D. Benjamin & G. Stacy Sirmans & Emily Norman Zietz, 1997. "Security Measures and the Apartment Market," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 14(3), pages 347-358.
    3. Jeffrey Pompe, 2008. "The Effect of a Gated Community on Property and Beach Amenity Valuation," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 84(3), pages 423-433.
    4. Francisco Sabatini & Rodrigo Salcedo, 2007. "Gated communities and the poor in Santiago, Chile: Functional and symbolic integration in a context of aggressive capitalist colonization of lower‐class areas," Housing Policy Debate, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 577-606, January.
    5. Aron Gooblar, 2002. "Outside the Walls: Urban Gated Communities and their Regulation within the British Planning System," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 321-334, April.
    6. William G. Hardin III & Ping Cheng, 2003. "Apartment Security: A Note on Gated Access and Rental Rates," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 25(2), pages 145-158.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adrienne La Grange, 2014. "Hong Kong's Gating Machine," Housing Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 251-269, March.
    2. Landry, Craig E. & Shonkwiler, J. Scott & Whitehead, John C., 2020. "Economic Values of Coastal Erosion Management: Joint Estimation of Use and Existence Values with recreation demand and contingent valuation data," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    3. Gopalakrishnan, Sathya & Smith, Martin D. & Slott, Jordan M. & Murray, A. Brad, 2011. "The value of disappearing beaches: A hedonic pricing model with endogenous beach width," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 297-310, May.
    4. Hölzl, Corinna & Krellenberg, Kerstin & Heinrichs, Dirk & Welz, Juliane & Kabisch, Sigrun, 2011. "How sustainable are processes of social and spatial differentiation in Santiago de Chile? Current situation and future scenarios for social inclusion," UFZ Discussion Papers 2/2011, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Division of Social Sciences (ÖKUS).
    5. O. Ashton Morgan & Stuart E. Hamilton, 2009. "Disentangling Access and View Amenities in Access-restricted Coastal Residential Communities," Working Papers 09-10, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    6. Felipe Livert Aquino & Xabier Gainza, 2014. "Understanding Density in an Uneven City, Santiago de Chile: Implications for Social and Environmental Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(9), pages 1-22, September.
    7. Monique DANTAS & Frédéric GASCHET & Guillaume POUYANNE, 2010. "Regulatory zoning and coastal housing prices: a bayesian hedonic approach (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2010-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    8. Guillaume POUYANNE & Frederic GASCHET, 2013. "The Effect Of Current And Future Land Use On House Prices," ERSA conference papers ersa13p249, European Regional Science Association.
    9. Jeanne DACHARY-BERNARD & Sandrine LYSER & Frédéric GASCHET & Guillaume POUYANNE & Stéphane VIROL, 2011. "Real Estate and Land Values on the shoreline: a transaction-level analysis (In French)," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2011-07, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    10. Señoret, Andrés & Ramirez, Maria Inés & Rehner, Johannes, 2022. "Employment and sustainability: The relation between precarious work and spatial inequality in the neoliberal city," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    11. David Kostenwein, 2021. "Between walls and fences: How different types of gated communities shape the streets around them," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(16), pages 3230-3246, December.
    12. Yang, Hee Jin & Kim, Yoon-jung, 2022. "The role of territorial collective goods in Korea’s residential development," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    13. Zhengzhen Tan & Siqi Zheng & Juan Palacios & Carl Hooks, 2021. "Market Adoption of Healthy Buildings in the Office Sector: A Global Study from the Owner's Perspective," International Real Estate Review, Global Social Science Institute, vol. 24(2), pages 253-292.
    14. John D. Benjamin & Peter Chinloy & William G. Hardin III, 2007. "Institutional-Grade Properties: Performance and Ownership," Journal of Real Estate Research, American Real Estate Society, vol. 29(3), pages 219-240.
    15. repec:rre:publsh:v:40:y:2010:i:3:p:273-286 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Kathleen Grace & Joshua C. Hall, 2019. "The Value of Residential Community Associations: Evidence from South Carolina," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 25(1), pages 121-129, February.
    17. Steven Henderson, 2010. "Developer Collaboration in Urban Land Development: Partnership Working in Paddington, London," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 28(1), pages 165-185, February.
    18. Morgan, O. Ashton & Hamilton, Stuart E., 2011. "Disentangling Access and View Amenities in Access-Restricted Coastal Residential Communities," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 43(2), pages 1-10, May.
    19. Arlan Brucal & John Lynham, 2021. "Coastal armoring and sinking property values: the case of seawalls in California," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 23(1), pages 55-77, January.
    20. Jeanne Dachary-Bernard & Frédéric Gaschet & Sandrine Lyser & Guillaume Pouyanne & Stéphane Virol, 2011. "L'impact de la littoralisation sur les marchés fonciers : une approche comparative des côtes basque et charentaise," Post-Print hal-00688634, HAL.
    21. Michael Makovi, 2019. "Government vs. Governance: Libertarianism and Private Communities," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 34(Spring 20), pages 39-57.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:38:y:2011:i:5:p:757-775. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.