This informative volume gathers contemporary accounts of the growth, influences on, and impacts of so-called gated communities, developments with walls, gates, guards and other forms of surveillance. While gated communities have become a common feature of the urban landscape in South Africa, Latin and North America, it is also clear that there is now significant interest in gated living in the European and East Asian urban context. The chapters in this book investigate issues and communities such as: gated communities in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (Argentina); planning responses to gated communities in Canada; who segregates whom? The analysis of a gated community in Mendoza, Argentina; sprawl and social segregation in southern California.

These illustrative chapters enable the reader to understand more about the social and economic forces that have lead to gating, the ways in which gated communities are managed, and their wider effects on both residents, and those living outside the gates. This book was previously published as a special issue of the journal "Housing Studies".