Home Cultures

The Journal of Architecture, Design and Domestic Space

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Gated Communities in Mexico City

Angela Giglia

To cite this article: Angela Giglia (2008) Gated Communities in Mexico City, Home Cultures, 5:1,
65-84, DOI: 10.2752/174063108X287355
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ANGELA GIGLIA

GATED
COMMUNITIES IN
MEXICO CITY
BORN IN ITALY IN 1961, ABSTRACT Based on long-term field
ANGELA GIGLIA HAS LIVED
IN MEXICO CITY SINCE
research, this article addresses the issue
1994. SHE HAS A PHD IN of gated communities in Mexico City

HOME CULTURES DOI 10.2752/174063108X287355

SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY as a specific form of the crisis of public
AND ETHNOLOGY FROM THE
ECOLE DES HAUTES ETUDES
space and urban order in a stratified
EN SCIENCES SOCIALES society. By comparing different forms
(EHESS), PARIS, 1995; AND IS of “gated community,” the paper shows
THE AUTHOR OF TERREMOTO
Y RECONSTRUCCIÓN
their common characteristics in spite of
(EARTHQUAKE AND their morphologic differences. Living in
REBUILDING) (FLACSO- segregated residential spaces in Mexico
PLAZA Y VALDÉS, 2000).
SHE IS PROFESSOR OF
City is a complex social process which is
ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE not only the result of the fear of crime but
UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA also a way to escape from urban disorder,
METROPOLITANA,
MEXICO CITY. HER WORK
to set up islands of social homogeneity
CONCERNS THE USE AND and to experiment with new forms of local
REPRESENTATIONS OF government.
URBAN SPACE.

KEYWORDS: public space, segregation, gated

communities, Mexico City
65
 ANGELA GIGLIA

SPATIAL SEGREGATION AND THE CRISIS OF

PUBLIC SPACE

> This article examines aspects of residential self-segrega-

tion in Mexico City, within the scope of a broader reflection
about the transformation of public space over the last few
decades. Early discussions regarding the deterioration of urban
public spaces go back to the 1960s and the now classic works by
Jane Jacobs and Richard Sennet (Jacobs 1961; Sennet 1977). The
ideas of loss and “denaturalization” pervade in these and other
works; they present an image of something that has seen better
times and of which we now see only decadence (Joseph 1998; Low
2003; Sassen 1991; Signorelli 2001).
By loss or “crisis” of the public space, we refer to the crisis
of the modern city as a historic form related to a specific type of
society, the twentieth century’s industrial society. In the modern
city, the salient characteristics of public space—inclusion and free
access, the coexistence of different functions, and the acceptance
of the strange and new on the basis of “public” rules, that is, rules
acknowledged by everyone—tend to disappear or become less
evident. What used to be public is no longer “public” to the same
extent: it increasingly becomes a commodity obtainable not be-
cause one is entitled to it, but rather because it can be purchased
and therefore utilized.1
This article proposes that the crisis of public space and the
increasing socio-spatial segregation relate to two distinct crises.
On the one hand, the crisis is a crisis of integration, a consequence
of the conditions of increasing social inequality and the resulting
exclusion of ever-larger population sectors (Paugam 1996). On the
other hand, it is a crisis of identification, the impossibility of managing
the entire city and relating to it as a whole, and, hence, the need
to sever it into pieces inside of which the bonds of belonging are
reconstructed and the urban experience is created. Therefore, the
crisis of public space is simultaneously a crisis of the forma urbis,
and a crisis of urbanity as the art of living together mediated by the
city, that is, as “urban sociability” (Giglia 2001a).
In Latin American cities, in societies subjected to globalization,
the 1990s reveal the new conditions of exclusion and social polariza-
tion that generate important changes in the ways urban space is
produced and organized. Among those changes are the proliferation
HOME CULTURES

of large real estate developments undertaken by private capital; a

boom in the production of enclosed public spaces, stratified accord-
ing to the social sectors for which they are intended and controlled
by private security devices; and the redevelopment of the decaying
or abandoned urban areas to transform them into symbolic or tourist
references. Another change is the mounting diffusion of gated
communities and the closing and restriction of access to urban
66

areas that were previously open. Further, these processes include

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

the proliferation of multifunctional urban complexes isolated from

traditional urban spaces, along with, on the other side of the coin,
the desertion of the “traditional” urban spaces (streets and public
squares) by the middle and upper classes, leaving them to the
lower classes.2
In the case of Mexico City, the insufficient capacity of the public
institutions to organize and establish regulation for the use of public
space goes together with all these processes. The referenced
phenomena combine to produce a situation of aggravated conflict
relating to what people may and may not do with and within public
space.
Socio-spatial segregation is perceptible not only in a more rig-
orous functional delimitation of space, but is increasingly more
evident as “self-segregation,” that is, as the organization of urban
experience in spaces Increasingly detached from urban surround-
ings deemed “undesirable.” Activities pertaining to residence, work,
leisure, sports, or everyday commuting are increasingly carried out
in different separate spaces that are closed and inaccessible to
those who cannot explain their presence there, conferring them
with a sign of both exclusivity and more security, making them
particularly desirable.
In this context of inequality and social and spatial fragmentation,
the issue of insecurity becomes almost ubiquitous and acts as
an umbrella to foster and reinforce the increasingly sophisticated
mechanisms of segregation (Wacquant 1999). As it can produce
behavior that drastically modifies the interactions of the residents
with their surroundings, and the uses of space in ways that not only
do not always improve the conditions of insecurity that they intend
to counteract, but can even be counterproductive, it is necessary
to emphasize the central importance of how the phenomenon of
insecurity is perceived.
Heightened security measures on the residents’ part bring
about deserted surroundings which are less collectively cared
for and, therefore, less secure. Enclosure does not always have
a positive effect on the general conditions of urban security. The
already abundant literature about gated communities (Caldeira
2000; Giglia 2001b; Lacarrieu-Thuiller 2001; Low 2003) indicates
that self-segregation does not always adequately lessen the risks
related to insecurity.3
HOME CULTURES

Moreover, the search of security is not the only factor that gen-
erates the proliferation of segregated spaces. Self-segregation also
operates and is meant to define social differences. The exclusive
use of certain spaces is what allows one to distinguish oneself
from others, as a process of construction and attachment of one’s
own identity and, at the same time, as a process of defense of
specific interests and lifestyles. Ironically, large metropolitan areas
67

are not the realm of anonymity, since places within them multiply
 ANGELA GIGLIA

as spaces in which people meet with their peers—to be among

“people like us”—and verify one’s own social belonging on the
peer’s mirror (Amendola 2000). The fact that these spaces are often
separated from each other, or are segregated and surrounded by
spaces that could be described as “no man’s land,” does not erase
them as “places,” that is, spaces that possess collective meanings
(Augé 1992), but does place them on a new urban geography, in a
different experience of the city.
It must be pointed out that self-segregation is not a process that
exclusively pertains to the well-off social classes. On the contrary, it
encompasses all social sectors, although with widely varied means
relating to the forms and the resources employed to make the
devices of segregation work. However, this article will only deal with
self-segregation relating to middle and upper-middle sectors living
in gated communities (Giglia 2001b).

GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

Gated communities are a consolidated presence in the landscape
of many American metropolitan areas; the examples of Los Angeles
(Davis 1992) or the Canadian “cottages” (Halseth 1998) come to
mind. In the case of Mexico City, they have a notorious historic back-
ground as they reveal an attitude of separation and protection from
the urban surroundings that is characteristic of the upper classes
throughout the city’s history. The “fortress-home” of colonial times
(Ayala 1996), for instance, was intended to protect the population
of Spanish descent from the surrounding Indians. In the context
of this article, “gated communities” refers to housing complexes,
horizontal condominiums as well as middle- and high-income single-
family home neighborhoods and single streets. Their distinctive
characteristic is that they are closed to the exterior by means of
one or more closing devices (such as security guards and booths,
traffic barriers, fences, alarm systems, and regular and electrically
wired walls). Their numbers have increased greatly in the past few
years, mainly by way of horizontal condominiums built by private
construction corporations and the closing of streets by neighbor
associations.
Gated communities are the outcome of specific socio-spatial
processes. With regard to urban segregation in general, and particu-
HOME CULTURES

larly in relation to what was previously stated, three socio-spatial

strategies take part in its creation and reproduction: the search
for security, the search for differentiation from the outside, and
the search for sociocultural homogeneity inside. The simultaneous
presence of these three strategies gives rise to gated communities
as specific socio-spatial entities that establish a distinct sociability
and a distinct urban experience. It is possible to compare different
types of gated communities because, despite their morphologic
68
 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

distinctions, they are the result of the same socio-spatial strategies.

The residents of gated communities seek to feel safe, to be dif-
ferent from the outside, and to live among peers in whom they
see their own way of life reflected. However, we should not take for
granted the effectiveness of these strategies, as they are intricate
and uncertain processes, subject to contradictions.
Bearing in mind that it is not a permanent situation, but the
result of a social process, the enclosure is subject to negotiations
and change. This article argues that it is not beneficial to set out in
this analysis from the simplistic idea of a city as a set of juxtaposed
pieces, but rather that it is necessary to study the specific circum-
stances that create this social geography of segregation. I also
argue that gated communities are not independent enclaves, much
less “neighborly paradises,” as some would have it. Some avail-
able studies on this issue in other Latin American countries clearly
show the strains that cut across these forms of current urban
neighborhoods (Giglia 2001b; Lacarrieu-Thuiller 2001; García
Sánchez 2001). It is possible to bring up at least three potentially
problematic subjects. The first one relates to the issue of the
operation of the security mechanisms involved in the process of
inclusion and exclusion. The second subject refers to the styles of
“self-government” inside and the relations with the local authorities.
The third subject relates to the construction of identification with
the local space, the definition of the inside and the outside, and
the development of a local identity that supports and redefines
the relationship with the urban surroundings, and maybe even the
concept of “city” itself.
The purpose of this article is to explore some considerations of
the urban experience of people who live in gated communities with
different types of enclosure, and their representations concerning
urban security and insecurity as well as local identity and “urban
order.” These ideas stem from an ethnographic comparison between
three different types of “gated community,”4 carried out during a
three-year study.4 The neighborhoods studied are a middle-class
residential development called Villa Olímpica, an upper-class gated
community in the Ajusco Forest named Tlalpuente, and two closed
middle-class blocks in the Coapa neighborhood.
In particular, the objective is to compare these places from the
perspective of the guiding questions that emphasize four different
HOME CULTURES

processes. The first one relates to the history of the establishment

of these places as enclosed neighborhoods or gated communities,
and the residents’ reasons to live there. The second objective is
how the closing is perceived in each case, and how it operates in
regards to the residents’ identification with the neighborhood. The
third forcus is how the closing actually works, beyond the residents’
representations. The fourth objective is how residents relate to the
69

immediate vicinity and the rest of the city while living “inside.”
 ANGELA GIGLIA

VILLA OLÍMPICA
Villa Olímpica was built as a residential complex for the athletes
participating in the 1968 Olympic Games. It is located on In-
surgentes Avenue, close to its intersection with Anillo Periférico Sur
(South Urban Ring Road), in a strategic area in the southern part
of the city. It comprises 904 apartments, most of them the same
size (three bedrooms, living and dining room, and service areas),
distributed in twenty-nine ten-story buildings. The first residents of
this development were markedly homogeneous in socioeconomic
terms, that is, highly educated male heads of household (either
professional or semi-professional), whose wives usually worked
outside the home instead of being just homemakers (González
Reyes 1991). There have been some changes in this original social
composition; however, there is still a strong presence of middle-
class intellectuals, some of them from abroad, since Villa Olímpica
has been a haven for expatriates from South America and, more
recently, for families coming from Asia and Eastern Europe.
The apartments’ features (servant’s quarters, trash chutes,
and two elevators per apartment building, among others), their ex-
posure and size, plentiful parking, and green areas still make Villa
Olímpica a high-quality place, in both functional and urban terms.
The neighborhood is completely walled and has a single entrance
controlled by guards twenty-four hours a day.
Villa Olímpica benefits from its proximity to two of the most
important urban arteries (Periférico and Insurgentes), three very
large malls (Perisur, Plaza Imbursa, and the newer Gran Sur), and
to three of Mexico City’s green lungs (Tlalpan Forest, Cuicuilco
Ecological Park, and Ciudad Universitaria’s Natural Protected
Area).
The account of a woman intellectual summarizes the residents’
view of their neighborhood:

What does Villa Olímpica mean to me? It means raising my

children here, a privilege, really. They always had somebody to
play with, they always enjoyed freedom, and they were always
safe.

In brief, this statement highlights the features that describe the

style of sociability within Villa Olímpica: the possibility of being in
HOME CULTURES

the company of others, freedom, and security. Combined, these

three elements render Villa Olímpica a “privileged” place. In fact,
many of its residents emphasize that this neighborhood is a very
cozy, cosmopolitan, and tolerant community, where diverse types of
people can find a place to live in peace and with tranquility. They
bring up the elderly, the youth, and children as groups who could
hardly find in the city the favorable conditions that the Villa offers
70

them for leisure and socializing.

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

These and other groups of people have “assigned” places in

different parts of the inside geography, and in the residents’ mental
maps. Thus, a miniature public space of sorts is reconstructed
inside, a scaled-down version, as if the apartment complex could
almost provide the conditions for civility that are no longer possible
in other public spaces. Conflicts do exist among the residents,
such as with regard to management. However, there is a notion
that those are confrontations among “civilized,” educated people
who are more respectful of the rights of others than people who live
in other similar residential complexes.
This notion of a social and cultural difference between the inside
and the outside strengthens the image of a small fortress city,
different and pleasant inside, an island of civility within an urban
environment with little civility or freedom. This representation of
a micro-world that is sociable and internally open to differences
is possible due to its isolation from the outside. Some residents
describe it as a “private” space, meaning not only that it is different
from the streets outside, but also that it has a different set of laws,
created by the residents, that concern the management of both the
inside and the boundary from the outside. In short, the idea of a
difference between the inside and the outside is very pronounced,
and is based on the existence of a spatial boundary, construed by
the residents as a social and cultural border that confers the inside
characteristics of its own.
The discourse of the residents depicts the closing mechanisms
as not needing further explanation. However, focusing on those
whom are not supposed to get in, it is evident that the existence
of a guarded barrier is not enough to effectively prevent strangers
from gaining access. Focusing first on those whom the barrier
does not keep out, everyday many pedestrians clearly go in and
out without going through the security guard’s control, especially
if they appear to be harmless middle-class people. The guards do
control the entrance of visiting cars, which have to stop completely
at the guard booth. Drivers are questioned about whom they are
visiting, and leave an identification card that must be returned to
them on leaving. However, as there is no strict control in checking
with the residents whether they are actually expecting someone,
it is possible to enter the complex without really visiting anyone
there. This shows that the closing mechanisms are not one
HOME CULTURES

hundred percent effective, as the residents’ accounts would seem

to imply. On the other hand, it is difficult to deny that the presence
of the automatic barrier and guards does produce a significantly
different environment between the outside and the inside, as those
elements are perceived from outside as a very strong dissuasion
mechanism, which reduces the number of potential visitors. It is
this difference of environment between the outside and the inside
71

that makes it possible for a mother to send her children out to

 ANGELA GIGLIA

play, telling them not to disturb her “until dinner time” and to let
them wander about in the complex, convinced that “they will not get
outside because it is closed.”
As for their relation with the surroundings and the city, the
residents see themselves entrapped by the growing urban sprawl.
Many residents recall a time when the complex was at the fringe
of the incipient urban area and “ten minutes were enough to get
here from the San Ángel [District].” When they remember how Villa
Olímpica used to be during its first few years and compare it to its
present condition, the idea of a certain decay surfaces, partly due
to the problems of the shared infrastructure’s upkeep, and partly to
the transformations that have taken place in its immediate vicinity.
The construction of highly valued sites like parks and shopping
malls around Villa Olímpica has the growth of the city. However,
it has also produced the feeling of invasion and siege. To get out
of the complex during peak hours and reach one of the two main
arteries of the city can take up to thirty minutes in the middle of
bumper-to-bumper traffic.

TLALPUENTE
This development borders the Ajusco Forest, located along the old
highway to Cuernavaca, and covers one hundred and sixty hectares
(about four hundred acres). The development’s origins trace back
to the decision of the widow of an important owner of large ex-
haciendas (former farms) who donated a group of lands located at
the foot of the Ajusco Hill to the communal farmers of San Andrés.
They managed these lands according to traditional indigenous law
or, more specifically, according to agreements made among some
of the families that divided the land between them primarily to
produce oak coal.
Later on, a group of upper-middle-class people who had experi-
ence in urban developments became interested in this land to build
an ecologically friendly community. The dwellers of San Andrés
sold the land to them and they divided it into plots of five to ten
thousand square meters, subsequently summoning their friends
with the intention to create a unique community in the forest in
close contact with nature—almost fleeing the city, yet remaining
close enough. Unlike Villa Olímpica, a planned housing complex
that was completely finished when the first residents arrived, the
HOME CULTURES

first residents of Tlalpuente had to settle as pioneers in a place

with no urban services or infrastructure. They colonized untouched
territory “with a machete,” in order to construct small weekend
cottages.
Threatened with eviction due to major land trespassing, in the
1980s Tlalpuente’s residents created a non-profit organization and
adopted a series of rules to create the first Special Zone of Con-
72

trolled Development (ZEDEC) in the woods. According to ZEDEC’s

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

regulations, the houses had to be built on large plots of land (the

building must not exceed 5 percent of the plot’s entire area or four
hundred and fifty square meters) for a plot of six thousand square
meters). The community’s guiding principles involved respect for
one another and preserving a piece of nature inside the city. For
this reason, the plots of land tend to be rather large and costly.
Houses vary from seventy-five to fifteen hundred square meters.
The Tlalpuente Homeowners Association exercises strict control
over new construction that ensures adherence to the building code.
Guidelines include distances from roads to buildings, use of colors
that match the natural colors of the forest, and the prohibition of
fences or other ostentatious property divisions. For these reasons,
this community has grown relatively little and slowly since it was
first created. It currently includes 312 plots of land but only 161
houses.
The area’s perimeter is almost completely fenced off. At the
entrance, there are guards and traffic barriers that open with the
use of magnetic cards in the possession of every resident. The
population density amounts to eight inhabitants per hectare, one
of the lowest in the metropolitan area. Even today, not everyone
who can afford to buy land and start building in Tlalpuente can
successfully achieve that goal: the place is far away, the terrain is
sloping, and hauling building material and waste to and from the
zone is more expensive. It is not unusual to find half-built deserted
houses. Moreover, maintenance expenses are high as they include
salaries for about twenty people, among who are security guards,
road maintenance, sanitation and management staff, and the team
that supervises plans for new constructions.
The fewer than four hundred homeowners belong to the upper
economic strata; there are bankers, restaurant owners, and plane
pilots. For them, more so than in the case of Villa Olímpica, the
idea of “living somewhere else than the city” is strong. Aiming
to live in a place that was the opposite of the city was the main
reason to move to Tlalpuente. Even located near downtown Tlalpan
and Perisur (fifteen minutes drive) a car is necessary inside the
development because of the steep slopes of the forest’s terrain.
Residents emphasize that having a third car is almost essential
in case someone remains home alone and needs to run errands,
for which it is necessary to use a car. Even if Tlalpuente now has
HOME CULTURES

public utilities (electricity, telephone, and water piping), paid for and
installed solely by the residents’ resources, the decision to move
to Tlalpuente is not easy. Residents say it is necessary to be a
nature and tranquility lover to live there, as it is not for everyone to
live isolated from others and surrounded by the deepest darkness
at night. The same isolation is part of this neighborhood’s everyday
life during the day. Some residents talk about the “Tlapuente
73

syndrome” that would cause residents to stay at home not wanting

 ANGELA GIGLIA

to get out, as if the forest atmosphere would capture and prevent

its inhabitants from getting away. The properties are so vast that
one could live there without ever seeing anyone else. There is
interaction among the residents, certainly, that takes place mainly
on weekends, when many go jogging or attend mass at the chapel
that some of them had built hoping for it to become a meeting
place. Interactions also occur on weekdays, when some residents
go down to the management office to request information about the
utilities, such as phone lines that tend to break down or expenses.
Residents think of management as something more than just a
bureaucratic function, more like an element that is vital to the
survival of the community.
In regards to their interaction with the vicinity, in the past few
years residents have had to fight those who would like to develop
part of the forest and build either horizontal condominiums or apart-
ment buildings. Notwithstanding their incorporation in ZEDEC, there
is a latent risk of losing parts of the green lands, and this has kept
them united up until now. By defending and preserving the forest,
they are obviously defending and preserving their own lifestyle,
their isolation, their breathing air, and their properties. Because
of that, one of management’s most demanding tasks is fighting
the disease that in recent years has destroyed many trees. Caring
for the affected trees and carrying out the necessary containment
measures entails a strict control—almost foot-by-foot—over a
widespread territory that can only be accomplished if the residents
are ecologically conscious. Using wood from dead trees requires
fumigating it first, which in turn implies a whole monitoring, col-
lection and storage system that is difficult to maintain regularly and
efficiently. To sum up, living in the forest entails responsibilities and
burdens; it does not simply mean a privilege for a few.
The threats of speculation and the environmental problems add
to the conflicting relations with the people of San Andrés Village,
who believe that Tlalpuente’s residents have deprived them of
“their” land. “The people of San Andrés don’t like us because
we have been able to preserve something they lost and that they
now envy.” On the other hand, the interaction between the two
groups is constant and inevitable as the residents of Tlalpuente
employ people from the village as maids, construction workers or
gardeners. Tlalpuente residents’ conception of the villagers is not
HOME CULTURES

free of prejudice and exaggeration. They think, for instance, that

the people of San Andrés would spend a fortune on a party for the
patron saint, to the point of selling their land cheap to cover the
expenses when they happen to be mayordomo5 in its organization.
On the other hand, it is precisely some of the village dwellers who
own land in Tlalpuente who would like to change the land use
description so it could be densely developed, which Tlalpuente
74

residents oppose.
 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

CLOSED STREETS IN COAPA

Unlike the gated communities described so far, there are two
separate streets that were closed in the Coapa neighborhood, in
the District of Tlalpan (Delegación Tlalpan). The closure is not a
preexistent morphological element, but the result of a process in
which residents rallied to block access to regular streets that were
originally open.
The empirical research dealt with two super-manzanas (super-
blocks), Super-block numbers Four and Five along Acoxpa Avenue.
The closing of streets in Coapa is a prevalent phenomenon in this
zone and it is very evident along the main avenues, Acoxpa, Canal
de Miramontes, Calzada del Hueso, and Calzada de Las Bombas,
all of which have many crossing streets closed by different means.
It is interesting to note that in the Guía Roji, the official map of
Mexico City, the closed streets are still marked as open streets.
There are different types of closure, including closure by means of
a security booth, traffic barrier and guard; a security booth, gate
and guard; a security booth, gate, traffic arm and guard; a security
booth and guard; and a gate made of iron bars. I also found the use
of large planters and poles as closing devices.
To better understand the complexity involved in the closing of
streets, and approach it as a phenomenon that possesses social
and symbolic connotations beyond its immediate or obvious function
(i.e. to block “undesirable” people from accessing), it is necessary
to take into account the residents’ point of view and frame it within
the dimension of its local history. That is, it is necessary to bring
in the shared experience of the residents, and the values and
meanings related to inhabiting these places.
Residents currently total more than five thousand people who
belong to middle- or lower-middle-class families and work as city
employees, shopkeepers, professionals, and small businessmen
(Soza 1999). From the residents’ point of view, living there is the ach-
ievement of a better status, symbolized by a private home located
in a residential neighborhood in a strategic area south of the city.
The first efforts to close streets go back some fifteen years ago,
when people started placing flowerpots and large planters to shield
themselves from the setting up of shops in the surrounding area,
something that would inevitably mean the arrival of public transport
in the zone. The aim was to reduce the uncontrollable traffic of cars
HOME CULTURES

and buses on through streets in order to guarantee the tranquility

of the area and its residential nature. Later on, closing streets was
more of a need to confront armed robbery and burglary, as well as
the stealing of cars. In short, closing streets became an increasingly
effective solution as disorder and uncontrolled occupation of public
space rose in the two blocks, and as the perception of insecurity in
the zone sharpened. Setting up mechanisms—i.e. security booths,
75

traffic arms, and guards; or fences—to drastically and definitely

close streets occurred only in the last few years.
 ANGELA GIGLIA

From the perspective of the internal dynamics among the

residents of these two gated communities, the closure of these
streets is the result of a process of participation that has not
been simple, but rather marked by recurrent failures and sporadic
instances when the community rallied around this objective. This
does not mean that they all agreed, but only that those who did
not completely agree gave their “implicit” consent (meaning they
showed “no opposition”). The decision to close streets was made
and carried out by a small number of residents, compared to the
total population. Some of them residents benefit from the outcome
of the closure (i.e. reduced insecurity and traffic), but do not pay for
the security services because they did not formally agree to close
the street; it is impossible to force them to pay a fee. This poses
a very serious problem for the relationships between residents and
shapes the dynamics of their participation in the community.
Super-block Five is completely enclosed. In the case of Super-
block Four, the enclosure is only partial. According to the accounts
of the residents, in both cases the decision to close the streets
was made by a small number of neighbors. Those who did not take
an active part in the proposal of the closure now tend to portray
it as the result of the will of a minority. On the other hand, those
who actively participated emphasize the fact that they had to get
everyone to sign—a sort of collective consent—in order to set it
up. Regarding Block Five, which is completely enclosed, there was
no real opposition, and a majority supported the initiative (at least
there was no aggressive or active opposition). In the case of Block
Four, which is partially enclosed, there was active opposition—even
if not always straightforward—on the part of some neighbors who
“systematically set to breaking the locks,” making it impossible to
keep on with the closure.
Some residents claim that opposition to closing Block Four
was due to the existence of businesses and shops inside the
neighborhood, whose owners were against closing the street. This
fact is indicative of the need for strong internal homogeneity to
carry out the decision to close. If there is mixed or heterogeneous
land use, it is more difficult to close the area, as the existence of
commercial or service businesses requires uncontrolled access,
as an essential condition, in order to operate successfully. On the
contrary, where there are only homes, it is apparently easier for the
HOME CULTURES

idea of closing to take, or at least it is easier to propose it as a

measure that would seem advantageous for everybody.
Nonetheless, the chief issue seems to be having enough re-
sources to pay a security company to control access. That is what
happens in Block Five: there are businesses here that need to
be easily accessible, such as a rental hall and a swimming pool,
but the closing mechanisms still work, in spite of this. If they still
76

work, it is due to their not being “simple” mechanisms left to the

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

care of residents; rather, it is a surveillance system that provides

a method to perform a selective access control, by means of the
identification of visitors. However, this most costly system is not
problem free either. In a pamphlet handed out to residents, the
Surveillance Committee advises neighbors not to honk at the
entrance while they are waiting for the guard to check in a visitor
before them. This is an indication that residents grow impatient
when they have to wait while the process of checking in visitors
takes place. According to a “functionalist” logic of separation and
segregation for homogeneous usages, a solution for this could be
to have separate entrances for residents and visitors.
Talking about their relationship to the District government (Del-
egación), residents acknowledge that “closing streets is not legal,
it is against the constitution and whatever you want; we do know
these things.” However, the notion that closing streets is a pressing
need that prevails over other issues, among them respect for the
law. On one occasion, authorities sent granaderos (similar to the
SWAT team) to forcefully open streets, but residents gathered in
great numbers to stop them from destroying their fence, standing
around the patrol car forcing the granaderos to leave.
The pervasiveness of the closed streets proves that the official
position is in fact tolerant, a result of their inability to give residents
the security they want and need, and either deciding not to, or not
being able to, systematically oppose each and every attempt to
close streets. When one of these two streets was closed, the District
government’s reaction was to declare that “from the moment they
closed it, they can no longer request the authorities to provide them
security or surveillance services,” but they are required to let them
in whenever it is necessary. In short, closing implies that residents
start taking care of their own security. On the other hand, as the
Neighbors’ Association president puts it, by keeping closed and
paying for private security services, neighbors “are doing the District
a favor”, because they enable the District to use those resources
to take care of other streets in greater need of attention. In fact, in
Block Four, with only partial enclosure, a District police car provides
security. Thus, the enclosure is no longer an expression of selfish
self-segregation. On the contrary, it is portrayed almost as a display
of civic responsibility and of willingness to cooperate on the part of
those who can afford to take care of themselves without having to
HOME CULTURES

turn to the authorities.

As to the functioning of the Neighbors’ Association, it is
interesting to note that Block Five—the area that is completely
enclosed—is not only the most efficient but also benefits from the
greatest participation from residents. Meetings here are held more
regularly and with larger turnouts, and the association holds social
activities for neighbors, like posadas before Christmas. In the
77

partially enclosed block, internal organization is more difficult; few

 ANGELA GIGLIA

residents attend meetings, and many are reluctant to cooperate

or do it exclusively when it is about crucial issues. There is a
correlation between how the internal organization works—either
the result of a capacity for mutual understanding or the existence
of strong leadership—and the closing mechanism’s efficacy, that
requires a situation of near unanimity or solidarity towards the
inside to be able to function properly.
The value of the home as a symbol of social status and, at the
same time, as a stronghold inside of which to escape the city is
realized once the enclosure is accomplished and the boundary to
the outside established. Every family performs an individual closing
alongside the collective closing of the street. At the same time, an
emulation process takes place among the neighbors to improve the
symbols of their social position, to embellish their homes and get
a new car. Just as the president of Block number Five’s Neighbors’
Association states, once the enclosure was achieved, “people
started to improve their homes, to make repairs to them, and to
get new cars.”

CONCLUSION
In comparing these different spaces, it is evident that the places
exhibit a set of common characteristics with respect to the way
their inhabitants portray themselves and how they think about their
relation to the outside, despite socioeconomic and morphological
differences and the actual closing mechanisms.
As far as the reasons to live in a gated community, the selection
of the place was determined by—although with some variation—the
desire of something different from the city. In the case of Villa
Olímpica, the desire was to live in a modern and functional complex,
that was green, quiet, orderly, and in a good location. In the case of
Tlalpuente it was living in the forest, away from the city, in isolation
and silence. There are two different ways—the latter more radical,
the former maybe more “realistic”—of rejecting the city which is
seen as chaotic, polluted, noisy and obviously insecure. Above
all, the residents’ narratives emphasize the uniqueness of their
communities, their difference from the rest of the city. The socio-
spatial strategy defined here as being “in search of distinction”
seems to be predominate over others.
In the case of the closed streets in Coapa, and in reference to
HOME CULTURES

the emulation process that takes place, feeling safer, and seeing
themselves as inhabitants of an enclosed place, different from the
outside, triggers among neighbors the desire to portray themselves
as belonging to a higher social group or fulfilling the desire to look
better by painting their houses or getting new cars. This process is
only partially explained by the enclosure seen as a guarantee of more
security, given that neighbors know that closing the streets does
78

not make them automatically safe from crime. They even know that
 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

in case of burglary inside the enclosed space, the security company

will not take responsibility, a fact that supports the assertion that
“thieves are above any surveillance.” Therefore, if they embellish
their homes it is to distinguish themselves from the outside and
to compete against their neighbors, imitating them in a generalized
race to be the best, and not only because they no longer have to
conceal their own social status for fear of robbery and burglary.
The search for security is not the only value associated with living
in an enclosed space; the fact that it is closed gives the space
a higher symbolic value, which leads to a process of “imaginary
social climbing.”
In regards to the second guiding question in this comparison,
that is, how the closing is perceived, and how it operates in regards
to the residents’ identification with the neighborhood, it needs to
be said that the enclosure is thought of as a given fact, not needing
further explanation. Perceiving the enclosure as a given fact makes
it possible to establish the difference in relation to the outside and
to construct a discourse about the identity in relation to the inside
and the specific characteristics of the enclosed space and its
inhabitants. The physical boundary allows—or at least helps—to
think of a social barrier. The inside is conceived as a world apart,
different from the rest of the city. In the case of Villa Olímpica, it is
defined as a “private” space where a different sociability operates,
which makes it possible for different types of people to live together
peacefully in a state of mutual respect. In the case of Tlalpuente,
residents emphasize their shared love of nature and the forest, and
the often problematic relations with their vicinity and the powerful
threats to the place’s existence.
Third, focusing on how the closing works, regardless of the res-
idents’ representations of it, it is evident that none of the closing
mechanisms is one hundred percent effective. In reality, what the
closing mechanisms do achieve is to diminish the probability of
“undesirable” individuals getting in, but they fail to completely
prevent it. “Nice-looking” pedestrians may walk into Villa Olímpica.
Trespassers are occasionally able to establish makeshift huts
inside Tlalpuente, maybe not fully realizing that they are on private
land, or maybe believing it is land that belongs to their community.
Is it fair to ask at what point these forms of “secured living”
achieve what their explicit main objective is: security. Looking at
HOME CULTURES

them from the outside, these spaces seem almost impenetrable,

but taking a closer look, from the inside, we realize they are
“porous” places, at least partially. We are still far from the North
American Gated Communities, with armed guards willing to shoot
strangers, but maybe this type of situation does exist in Mexico City,
and we only need to look for them in still higher social sectors. The
symbolic value that the representation of security has also needs
79

to be emphasized. In view of the fact that it is the precondition that

 ANGELA GIGLIA

enables distinguishing oneself from others and, at the same time,

to speak about “us” when referring to the inside, the consideration
of its actual efficacy (what does “secure” mean?), falls to a second
place in importance. It is as if supervising surveillance would stop,
with the assumption that inside is safer than outside, which is good
enough, even if it is not “completely safe.”
The fact that there are individuals who evade control or do not go
through the gates, even if they are completely harmless, reinforces
the notion that the efficacy of the security mechanisms is related more
to being able to reduce—rather than to eliminate—the probability
of unwanted visitors. Moreover, the way these mechanisms actually
work denotes a crucial subject that is necessary to study in future
research. That is, the process of construction and reproduction of
the representation of the “undesirable individual,” the one who “is
not allowed in,” and how this representation actually shapes the
behavior of those in charge of security, as it is obvious that judging
who should be allowed in and who should not is a response to
cultural beliefs and stereotypes.
Fourth, with respect to the relationships with the surrounding
areas and the rest of the city from the perspective of living “inside,”
we can establish the existence of the idea—based on facts—of
invasion or aggression coming from outside to threaten the inside’s
survival. In the case of Villa Olímpica, residents emphasize the
fact that it has “endured” time passing by and, in spite of it all, “it
holds up;” it has not fallen like other developments. The issue of
the difficult defense of some degree of decorum inside is linked to
that of changes in the vicinity. While the city grows more chaotic,
overwhelming and less safe, Villa Olímpica managed to become
a stronghold against these processes. In the case of Tlalpuente,
the relationships with the outside have been sui generis right from
the beginning. Villa Olímpica residents moved into a functional
apartment complex featuring infrastructure and services (the pool,
a movie theater, and a store) that gradually lost their raison d’être,
due to the construction of the large shopping centers around it.
On the contrary, in the case of Tlalpuente, homeowners paid for
everything relating to the creation of urban infrastructure (roads,
sewer, septic tanks) and the most basic services (electricity, water,
telephone). In their dealings with the different electricity, telephone
and other companies, their relation to them is that of clients that
HOME CULTURES

contract a service, rather than that of citizens demanding for their

needs to be met and their rights to be respected in exchange for
paying their taxes: the right to live in an urban space with proper
infrastructure. When residents oppose others’ use of the forest,
they do it based on their right over the land that they developed,
that they turned habitable by establishing the basic facilities.
Facing both external threats as well as everyday difficulty, the
80

danger is that homeowners might be forced to solve their own

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

problems, using their own resources. This is not only about a sep-
aratist tendency on the residents’ part. There is a tendency on the
part of local authorities to take the least responsibility in maintaining
and managing the “inside” space, “defined by the Condominium
space,” defined according to the Condominium Code (Giglia 1998).
We are not far from an image of the urban as a “re-feudalized”
space, made up of fortress-like, self-governed citadels.
It is important to emphasize that in these spaces not every-
body shares the same beliefs and lifestyle, and internal conflict
does exists. It is sometimes serious, even if residents tend to
diminish or overlook it in their accounts to the researcher, who
is considered—fairly—as part of the “outside.” The existence of
conflict is perceptible, above all, in internal dynamics, although to
outsiders they often portray their spaces as separate entities that
are willing and able to self-govern, at least in matters concerning
the shared areas, the selection of new residents, and the ques-
tion of style inside. If, on the one hand, gated communities entail
fragmentation and socio-spatial division, inside they reproduce
small-scale public spaces, where decisions are made and different
interests settled. Even if it is limited to the inside space, the forced
exercise of self-government turns these gated communities into
privileged vantage points to study the incipient constitution of new
forms of citizen participation. It may even be a place to examine the
restructuring of the public arena, according to new principles, as in
the case of the residents of Tlalpuente protecting and taking care
of the forest “they own” and, at the same time, a forest that is part
of the inheritance of the world, of humankind.
In their relationships to the rest of the city, residents seem to
adopt different and selective transportation strategies. The way
transportation to the city is organized presents us with a differentia-
tion between routinely visited places, like the workplace, shopping,
and household services (laundry, bank, post office, supermarket,
gym, etc.) that tend to be established in a small radius around the
residential area, and other places that are seldom visited, related to
preferences, lifestyles, social networks or family and kinship. These
places, visited on weekends or very seldom, cover a much larger
radius that configure sociability maps that encompass the whole
metropolitan area and can expand to the national or international
levels. We also find individuals who confine their lives to a restricted
HOME CULTURES

space, limiting their mobility as much as possible. In Villa Olímpica

this is due to the fear of insecurity and the city in general, while
in Tlalpuente it seems to be associated with reasons specifically
linked to the place, such as being located far from the rest of the
city and the obligatory use of car. The spatial issue of proximity is
still important to define one’s everyday life, in opposition to the
trend of those who maintain that in the postmodern city:
81
 ANGELA GIGLIA

Proximity loses importance and gives leeway to other forms

of identification based not on residential space, but rather
on spatial mobility: the shopping place, the entertainment
place, the place where kids go to school which become part
of many other elements, equally strong, that contribute to the
construction of new changing and undetermined identities of
the contemporary city (Amendola 2000: 61).

In Mexico City, probably because of its huge size and traffic con-
ditions, proximity retains some importance. In the sites studied
here, there would seem to exist a dimension of proximity, related
to everyday routine that can generate some identification with
the local neighborhood. A different, much broader analysis would
sketch a geography of spaces laden with signs of distinction,
where identification is constructed based on standardization or
homogeneization of practices (the shopping mall for consumption,
the country club for entertainment, etc.) in places patronized by
“people like us.”
To conclude, it is true that segregation and socio-spatial frag-
mentation take away “urban quality” from the city. In this regard, as
Jane Jacobs brilliantly proved forty years ago, quality is due to the
variety of functions and meanings associated to one place (Jacobs
1961). On the other hand, particularly in regards to residential self-
segregation, it would be reductionist to look at gated communities
through the glasses of urban disintegration or the loss of the public
realm. As I have argued, in these places new forms of living and
thinking the city are already being born.

NOTES
1. A little over ten years ago, using public telephones in Mexico
City was completely free. Later on, it became necessary to pay
in order to use them. Now that almost all public phones require
a calling card to make phone calls, using them entails a certain
buying power, of at least thirty pesos (about US$3), the cost of
the cheapest calling card.
2. For an overall view of the recent transformations of Latin
American cities, see Portes, Roberts and Grimson (2005).
3. From the perspective of the reactions to insecurity, the closure
of streets pertains to the so-called “architecture of fear” that
HOME CULTURES

has had vastly different manifestations throughout history.

4. The research is based on participant observation and open
interviews (of a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of forty in
each place). Research findings have produced, in some cases,
masters or bachelors (see Soza 1999, Gottfried 2002 and
Sheinbaum 2004) theses that I have directed. In each one
of the studied sites, the interviews focused on the following
82

topics: the place’s history, the residents’ socioeconomic level,

 GATED COMMUNITIES IN MEXICO CITY

their perception of the street closing and its history, internal

neighborhood organization, the residents’ relationship with the
surrounding area, urban practices and mobility through the rest
of the city.
5. The patron saint’s servant in catholic tradition.

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