Understanding Indonesia’s gated communities and their relationship with inequality

Income inequality continues to increase worldwide and is highly visible in cities. This rising income inequality, along with the growing upper-middle class, has accelerated the development of gated communities (GC) as a desired housing for the ‘successful’ groups and a manifestation of how the city reproduces inequality. We analyze GC development in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and offer a typology for this housing option in that country where income inequality has been growing and is now a serious government concern. Although the early 2000s saw isolated GC in only a few cities, now they are developing vigorously. This article contributes twofold. First, it provides evidence on the emergence and features of GC. Second, it shows a relationship between income inequality, social differences and GC development for upper-middle class residents in Indonesia. We argue that there is a mutually reinforcing relationship between inequality and GC: increasing income inequality leads to higher number of GC and this material artefact entrenches ‘emplaced inequality’.