IAS A6080 Gated Cities, Gated Communities, Gated Minds
This course explores the global phenomenon of "gating" and privatizing urban spaces to create residential and commercial areas that offer a sense of heightened security and seclusion, a respite from the perceived chaos, violence and anonymity of the ever encroaching city. Gated communities are no longer to be found in the suburbs but are fracturing city space as fortified enclaves become sanitized, re-imagined, branded and sold. In this course we will explore the contours and content of this physical gating of urban metropolitan spaces through divergent lenses, taking an interdisciplinary journey into some of the "cities of walls" that have been emerging in the Americas. We will read ethnographic and sociological studies and urban theory as well as literary works that examine how the privatization of the city is redefining urban life in the Americas -from Buenos Aires and Sao Paolo to Los Angeles and New York. What does this (re)segregation by class, race, ethnicity and gender imply in terms of our day-to day encounters and relationships as well as our roles as citizens? Are we just gating our lives or our minds as well? We will cover some of the theoretical debates on gated communities, thinking about the reasons behind gating and the typologies associated with these different motivations, assessing the impact on the urban fabric as well as investigating the implication the increasing privatization of neighborhood and commercial spaces has in term social segregation and exclusion. We will also explore the historical continuities of gating, looking at the private practices and legal mechanisms by which communities have cordoned themselves off from others in the name of security, property values and ""life style"" choices to create segregated urban landscapes. We will be examining the formation of ""American Apartheid"" in the US, scrutinize the "the City of Walls" of Sao Paolo and "excavate the "fortress cities" of Los Angeles and New York. We will also read several novels, such as T.C. Boyle's Tortilla Curtains set in the California, The Thursday Wives by Claudia Piñeiro set in Argentina and The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Contact Hours
3 hr./wk.