Abstract:
In the last decades, contemporary larger cities have undergone a progressive enclavic development. The spread of gated communities has been considered in academic literature a key element in this process. Gated neighbourhoods have been described as places enhancing the provision of security, facilities, amenities and sense of community, but also as contributors to processes with critical impact on democratic life in urban environment, regarding pluralism, social cohesion and inclusion. The relation between these two contrasting aspects has been widely explored, but the interpretation of the persistence of the diffused acritical acceptance of this settlement model is not conclusive. This article argues that territorial aspects are key in the understanding of this puzzling ambivalence and discusses the analytical aspects of a research set out to explore and describe the peculiar socio-spatial organisation of gated community territories, focusing on the relation between forms of spatial configuration and materiality, and spatial aspects of appropriation, association and control. The discussed exploration, facing the poor body of studies on territorial aspects of these developments, proposes a new method for territorial analysis. Addressing one of the most crucial context, the Brazilian cities, it looks at a particular settlement type, called loteamento fechado (enclosed subdivision), which shows the highest complexity in territorial articulation. The article, after discussing the gaps in the studies on gated communities, discusses the new method and applies it to representative cases of loteamento fechado. The analysis provides evidence of the main differences in territorial organization between these and other types of settlement in Brazilian cities. The methods focus on territorial sequences, exploring the characteristics of typical chains of association; and territorial boundaries, investigating the visual and physical and semantic attributes of transition areas, such as overlaps and markers. Preliminary results of the research are presented and eventually evaluated in relation to the research hypothesis: to describe how the enhanced territorial form of gated communities improves their perceived quality and reframes the commonly criticised ambivalent agency.
