New landscapes of gated communities: Australia's Sovereign Islands

Abstract

The gated community phenomenon is well entrenched in numerous cities around the world. Stimulated by concerns over eroding public safety and legitimated through a discourse of community civility, gated communities are the physical manifestation of complex social anxieties and aspirations. Typically, gated communities rely upon aggressive mechanisms of exclusion, such as gates and walls that are ‘policed’ by private security guards. However, this need not be the case. Socio-spatial exclusion can be established and maintained through the more subtle, but nonetheless effective, creation of landscapes that are so imbued with a sense of prestige that they arguably initiate a process of ‘self-othering’ amongst those beyond their margins. Here, the Sovereign Islands development in Queensland, Australia is examined to explore how the landscapes of gated communities themselves can be physically and discursively constructed so as to obviate the need for aggressive barriers of exclusion.

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