Is it better to live in a gated community?

The Star
Sunday, 07 Jun 2015
7:48 AM MYT
By DZOF AZMI

It looks like the guarded community in my area will soon expand to include my house. Some of the more enterprising neighbours have been collecting signatures for the last few weeks, and I just received a text message saying that they are going to start blocking up roads soon.

I fully support their efforts to make the neighbourhood more secure and when I first heard about it, I suggested we should collect statistics to show that crime had dropped after the gates went up.

I asked how many break-ins we had this month so far without a gated community in place. The answer? None. A few weeks later, somebody was robbed, but it happened in a house in the guarded zone.

Understand that this isn’t a case of local thugs disguised as security, as reported in the papers recently, although I never discount the idea that an individual guard might be in the pay. It’s just that for some reason, crime in our area, for the time being, seems to be low and incidents are a one-off, rather than repeat offenders.

Even if we were in a tough period, it seems that having a guarded community does not necessarily mean a significant reduction in crime. An Australian researcher, in his paper on guarded communities, wrote that “Despite their additional security features and their ability to exclude non-resident ‘intruders’, crime within the community may not be reduced or eliminated”. One reason could be because much of the crime conducted in a neighbourhood is done by people familiar with the area – people who live there, or regular visitors such as cleaners, contractors or gardeners.

What does rise is perceived security. It’s possibly confirmatory bias that makes sure you must be secure since you’re paying so much money for it.

Perhaps the solution will be gated and monitored communities, with the help of CCTVs. But as I mentioned in a previous article (“Monitor wizards”, Feb 2, 2014), their usefulness as evidence is questionable (pictures are not sharp enough), and their effectiveness as a deterent is short-lived (criminals learn how to work around it).

There are other issues in forming guarded communities. Town planners worry about exclusion zones that don’t allow communities to mix. As it is, I already have neighbours that bemoan the foreign students that come and play football in the field near my house. Rather than an opportunity to create diversity in the community, they are seen as dangerous strangers who make use of “our” public field.

They might believe a guard and a gate will put a stop to that. But in fact, as a recent court case demonstrated, a gated community that has been approved by the city council can block the roads, but road users who want to enter must be allowed passage. A public road can be used by any member of the public.

So if a guarded community might not reduce crime or keep undesirables out, what good is it then?

Perhaps it is the journey and not the destination. This attempt at a guarded community in my area has brought together residents regularly to discuss the initiative. As a result, they have gotten to know each other better, which can only be good all around.

In fact, one of the best ways to fight crime is to know your area and neighbours and understand what the hot spots are. To that end, the weekly community meeting with the local police goes a long way.

We are now alerted if any group tries to use our area as a hunting ground, and understand their modus operandi so as to counter it. We share information about strangers in the area and whether we should be on the lookout for them.

But don’t just take my word for it. Research from Australia, the US and Turkey also agree that improved community relationships is one of the benefits of gated communities. Because they feel safe, people are more comfortable coming out of their house and talk to their neighbours. Of course, your neighbour could still be a psychopathic maniac, but the point is you may get to know he is one before he does anything truly terrible.

We are managing to bond only because we have a common issue to address. I can’t help but wonder whether other formal gated communities gain this benefit of closer cooperation, especially those where people don’t walk out of the house to a local park or playground. I have no data to back this up, but I think some communities are better than others at fostering relationships.

Why is this important? Because the better we understand someone we think is different – be it by race or religion or income level – the more likely we are to realise we’re not so different after all.

Transform communities who stand apart because our neighbours are not “like us” into havens where we stand together and everyone can say, “Yes, they like us”.

Logic is the antithesis of emotion but mathematician-turned-scriptwriter Dzof Azmi’s theory is that people need both to make sense of life’s vagaries and contradictions. Speak to him at star2@thestar.com.my.

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Is It Better To Live In A Gated Community?