Salcedo, R. and A. Torres (2004). "Gated communities in Santiago: wall or frontier?" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28(1): 27-44.
This article challenges the widely held notion (particularly by the LA school of urban studies) that gated communities are enclaves based on segregation, with negative connotations, by considering a more benevolent example of gated communities in Chile. This ethnographic research is based on in-depth interviews in gated communities and a surrounding shantytown in the Huechuraba district, a lower socio-economic class area in north-west Santiago. The authors argue that in Santiago, gated communities help the poor communities that surround them, and in such conditions of spatial proximity sociability between inside and outside groups is not diminished. Spatial proximity between inside and outside groups of gated communities has encouraged relations mainly in the realm of functional exchange, making the creation of gated communities in poor neighborhoods a socially desirable experience in the case of Santiago. This article is a good complement to Bagaeen and Oduku*'s edited book on gated communities, which challenges narrow definitions of gated communities and provides empirical examples of a range of types of gated communities internationally.