Golden Ghettos: Gated Communities and Class Residential Segregation in Montevideo, Uruguay

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the local expression of a global phenomenon: gated communities in Montevideo, Uruguay. Focusing on the residents' perspective, I investigate microlevel processes of class segregation. I analyze residential and class trajectories, motivations for moving, and consequences of the move. I rely on interviews with residents, developers, architects, and real-estate agents; advertisements; and ethnographic field notes. A major finding is that gated communities do not always increase social and residential segregation. In Montevideo, families in these neighborhoods were already segregated from lower classes. Residents experienced changes in family and community life, but those changes rarely corresponded to changes in their class segregation. This challenges the central focus of the literature on gated communities: a presumed effect on increased class segregation regardless of the context. Another major finding is that residents moved to new neighborhoods to secure class reproduction and gain control over their immediate environment, something that they saw the open city was threatening. Surprisingly, these motivations are very similar to those reported in studies of gentrification. Rather than calling for yet another stretching of the meaning of gentrification, based on these similarities I argue that comparative urban research would profit from a more acute focus on underlying social processes rather than on manifest physical forms.