Co-evolution of gated communities and local public goods

Abstract

Gated communities are often seen as steps towards the privatization of the public realm. This is too simple a characterization, however: privately and publicly governed infrastructure and services exist and adapt symbiotically. There is little empirical research focusing on the co-evolution of private and public neighbourhoods. In this paper we focus on a specific question that has not yet been answered: does the spatial pattern of privately supplied public goods co-evolve with the pattern of publicly supplied public goods? We examine this question through a case study of Seoul, where club residential communities are common enough to test co-evolution hypotheses. We identify co-evolutionary relationships between club goods supplied in condominiums and public goods supplied by municipalities and market. We also find evidence of Tieboutian intra-urban market and show how the substitution of club goods for positive urban externalities seems to weaken the influence of general accessibility on residential locational behaviour.