Tamon Charles-Book Review

Urban Life
Spring 2010
Book Review

I found the book entitled “Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America” by Setha Low was very interesting and necessary for the society that we currently live in. The book is presented as an autobiography where the author seeks to take a childhood experience at the tender age of six and growing up in West Los Angeles and explore on a type of lifestyle that she was not aware of. The experience pertained to why she [the author] was not allowed to enter the gated community to play with her friend Dolly who is also her classmate in second grade. Although her friend Dolly later explained her mother’s disapproval of her playing within the walls of the gated community as she [the author] was “low class”, this labeling though dismissed because of her inability to understand what that meant, was the building block that lead to her compiling a collection of research work on what it meant to reside in such a community.

One of strong points of Low’s methodology used to understand the way of living in a gated community was include her personal observation of her sister whom she visited in San Antonio Texas with her husband Joel and daughter. The author was very aware of how the security system was very much like a confined representation of residing. For instance, one morning as she opened the door to get some fresh air, the alarm quickly went off and this immediately got the attention of her sister and her family. To her surprise, their response to alarm going off was unbecoming—they acted as if an uninvited person invaded their property. For the rest of the visitation, she describes her stay there as being “trapped, claustrophobic and uneasy, as if something dangerous is just outside the door” (6). Her mission from then on was to conduct interviews with residents of gated communities to fully cover and unfold the benefits (if any) of inhabiting in such places as opposed to those communities without gates.

Based on her research, Low introduces that living in gated communities was a new version of middle-class American dream as a method of protection from danger, crime and consequently this version is an opportunity to have safe environmental conditions as well as friendly neighbors. As she continues this venture, she incorporates how seldom residents are truly aware of their very neighbors—one of the cons of this type of living arrangement and that to some people, this was preferred.

The author goes on to draw the connection between the design of gated communities were due to crime and the fear of crime as she quotes Jane Jacobs who spoke of “keeping “eyes on the street” is an important solution for creating streets and neighborhood” (22). Low recalled conducting interviews with the residents of Sun Meadow, Texas and found it interesting in the variations of ideas that the homeowners considered prior to purchasing their property. Their common interest was about finding community where family ties are kept and that residents come together to organize events such as Christmas shows as a way of bringing the neighbors together. Whether it was Tara who was seeking an old fashioned community or Georgette, the grandmother married for forty six years who was retired and attempted replicating a military lifestyle or Eileen who seeking community but could not find it although she attended community board meetings as her husband sits on the board—the author concurs that gating does not necessarily create community, however it selects for a certain type of individual as well as level of income.

In all, the author’s argument remains cohesive throughout her findings in the book. She states that “gated communities are an attempt to recapture an ideal world in the face of contemporary realities” (224). She finally affirms the trends of gated communities in California to sum up most communities that “the illusion is important for homeowners because it enables them to feel better about their social status and place in the world in a period of social and economic transition. This evolution of fake gating from the “real” thing substantiates how profoundly gating permeates American culture, replacing and reconstructing notions of “community” “security” and the “American dream” (229).