An interview with an gated-community-resident (Fort Lauderdale, Wellington: sales, real estate, rental)

[tomasz pozar]

Myself and my colleague, Emil Östman, are students of journalism at
Södertörn Collage in Stockholm, Sweden.
We have chosen the topic of gated residential communities as our
graduation project, a phenomenon that is virtually non-existent in
Sweden, but on its way. We are very interested in meeting with people who live in such communities as well as representatives of the communities in Fort Lauderdale area

If You know someone who like to speak about this topic or if You know
some community We could contact, we would be very grateful.
i know there is a lot of them in Florida but we have to start somewhere...

Sincere regards
Tomasz Pozar & Emil Östman, Södertörns Högskola, Stockholm, Sweden

[jhlcomp]

I live in an area of gated communities - my husband and I do not live in a gated community. Friends and relatives of ours live in gated communities.

You will find as you do your research that there are various levels of gated communities which range from mid level to extremely wealthy communities.

Rules and regulations in these communities vary as well - some to the point of being totally absurd. My friend was cited because birds had defecated on her mailbox and was ordered to have it cleaned. Another case was about weeds growing between interlocking driveway pavers (that is a no-no) if you have interlocking driveway pavers you will need to spray weedkiller on the driveway.

Gated communities are not for everyone. I believe there are as many positives as there are negatives. Good luck in your research. You will also want to research those communities that are both for the over 55 age group as welll as the general communities. There are differences.

[tomasz pozar]

I understand, thanks.

[runswithscissors]

Originally Posted by jhlcomp

I live in an area of gated communities - my husband and I do not live in a gated community. Friends and relatives of ours live in gated communities.

You will find as you do your research that there are various levels of gated communities which range from mid level to extremely wealthy communities.

Rules and regulations in these communities vary as well - some to the point of being totally absurd. My friend was cited because birds had defecated on her mailbox and was ordered to have it cleaned. Another case was about weeds growing between interlocking driveway pavers (that is a no-no) if you have interlocking driveway pavers you will need to spray weedkiller on the driveway.

Gated communities are not for everyone. I believe there are as many positives as there are negatives. Good luck in your research. You will also want to research those communities that are both for the over 55 age group as welll as the general communities. There are differences.

I don't consider those issues absurd, that's why I am a perfect gated community HOA resident. They are not for everyone, that's true.

Are you saying that you'd let your weeds grow in the pavers?
And I'd bet there was foliage over the mailboxes, birds don't arbitrarily defecate on mailboxes ha ha.

Are you saying that you'd live with YOUR mailbox covered with bird crap? LOL

I guess it takes all kinds....

[fauve]

I used to live in a gated community and now live on private property with a gate. While I did gain a feeling of a measure of safety (walking the dog at midnight, etc), I did not appreciate being told that I needed to keep my garage door closed during the day, esp since as the house was designed, my garage did not face the street, but my own driveway, and there was privacy landscaping so even my neighbor in that direction did not see it. We liked having the garage door opened because that was what my husband used as an art studio. We were also told to clean our mailbox and kill weeds in our pavers as well, but this I was a bit understanding of because I liked the clean look of the community.

We did end up moving due to the garage issue though and the inconvenience of the location. - new homes with gates here are also often built far from the city center and beach.

[dk22]

Originally Posted by runswithscissors

I don't consider those issues absurd, that's why I am a perfect gated community HOA resident. They are not for everyone, that's true.

Are you saying that you'd let your weeds grow in the pavers?
And I'd bet there was foliage over the mailboxes, birds don't arbitrarily defecate on mailboxes ha ha.

Are you saying that you'd live with YOUR mailbox covered with bird crap? LOL

I guess it takes all kinds....

Your username is so opposite of how you post. I don't think you'd ever run with scissors or have ever done that in your lifetime. You wouldn't be a perfect hoa resident if you did because they wouldn't allow it. Too much liabilities you know?

[lydialuna]

I live in a gated rental community and it seems that everything is pretty nice and the management is OK. But I long for the sense of community, where people can have chances to interact with each other. But here everybody just doesn't talk to the neighbors that much.

Gated communities are such significant phenomena in south Florida and I was so surprised to see that many when I moved here, which even triggered my research interests to find out whether the only purpose of the gates is to keep the alligators out (a friend's joke). Social isolation is so significant here and maybe gates do mean something about the status of class...

[fauve]

Social isolation is so significant here and maybe gates do mean something about the status of class...

I think you're on to something Lydia. I agree that especially when they built these communities crime was very low, and the gates were used as a sales technique to bring some panache to an otherwise boring cookie-cutter neighborhood.

[dk22]

Originally Posted by lydialuna

I live in a gated rental community and it seems that everything is pretty nice and the management is OK. But I long for the sense of community, where people can have chances to interact with each other. But here everybody just doesn't talk to the neighbors that much.

Gated communities are such significant phenomena in south Florida and I was so surprised to see that many when I moved here, which even triggered my research interests to find out whether the only purpose of the gates is to keep the alligators out (a friend's joke). Social isolation is so significant here and maybe gates do mean something about the status of class...

You are so right. I live in a city with no gated communitees at all and the people here are so friendly towards one another and neighbors have BBQ with one another and talk to each other. Such a rare treat in South Florida.

[Sharkey514]

The originators of this post (from Sweden?) may want to read an article by Rick Steves, the travel writer. A few years ago he wrote about gated communities in America. He cited a statistic that gated communities and prisons would be the largest growth sectors in U.S. real estate. I agree social isolation is significant here - BUT, it's significant in our culture. The same problem exists in many regions of the country and is pervasive in our society. For example, as much as people complain about being isolated they seem to prefer communicating via e-mail and blogs. In the old days we would be having this "blog" in person over the white picket-fence.

Our gated community has many nice common areas. Usually, my boys are the only ones on the playground. There is a big community pool, but it's not used very often. The only time my kids see the neighbors is on Halloween -- and half of the houses are either empty or have the lights out (don't bother ringing the bell). Sorry, I got off point...

Sad but true, our society is moving towards contrived neighborhoods and communities. We live in a gated community. I think that in many areas of the country, this is becomming the norm for new housing. For our family, it gives us a sense (may not be true) of security and protects the common areas (pool, playground, tennis courts) which we pay for. As South Florida residents know, the gated communities vary by codes, security, intensity of rules, and population focus. For example, we visited friends at a gated community in Wellington where the gaurd made a copy of my drivers license. Some neighborhoods have gates, but they are only down at night. Some of the big condo buildings on Ocean Drive have a "gated" system - you can't even drive up the driveway.