The Gated City
Planning Practice and the Challenges of Urban Fragmentation in Mexico
By Emma Regina Morales
Published
Apr 23, 2025Page count
208 pagesISBN
978-1447375371Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
Apr 23, 2025Page count
208 pagesISBN
978-1447375388Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy Press
The Gated City
The book tells the story of the proliferation of gated communities and the privatisation of public life and public space in Mexico over the last three decades. Drawing on research from Lomas de Angelópolis in Puebla, one of the largest gated communities in the world, Emma R. Morales explores why such fortified spaces have proved popular with middle class households.
Weaving together the multiple influences of housing policy, predatory financial markets and an increased fear of crime, the book sets out how policy makers and planners can improve decision-making and provide non-gated solutions to urban anxiety.
“One of the best contributions to the gated communities literature of the last 20 years. Morales introduces the concepts of ‘gatedness’ and explains the proliferation and popularity of private communities in Mexico. In the process, she provides theories and methodologies that will inform studies in other nations. She offers practical guidelines to urban planners and other policy makers to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.” Evan McKenzie, University of Illinois at Chicago
“A detailed and empathic vision of life in the new gated mega-metropolises emerging as the old and apparently insecure city is abandoned. This is a masterly book with an important message, that social progress may emerge, even from these newly fragmented and private spaces.” Rowland Atkinson, University of Sheffield
Emma R. Morales is a planner and Senior Lecturer at Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente, Mexico.
Introduction
Part 1: Urban Fragmentation and the Urban Gating Phenomenon
1. Planning Practice and Urban Fragmentation
2. Gatedness: A Framework to Understand the Urban Gating Phenomenon
Part 2: Policies, Practices and Meanings in Mexican Gatedness
3. Macro-Scale Stimulus in the Mexican Urban Gating Process
4. Producing a Fragmented Territory: Puebla's Metropolitan Area
5. Enabling the Gated City: The Lomas de Angelópolis Case
6. Conclusions. Planning Practice and Reclaiming the Open City
