Behind The Gates. . .

Behind The Gates, Life, Security, and The Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America; Setha Low has done her research to find out what is the gated community and tries to find out answer or the truth about the social segregation come out from GC development. In order to achieve her goals, she has used a method like interviews, observations, which are basically through photo documentation and participatory observation since she also lived in GC.

According to Setha Low, through her book, "Behind The Gates", there were some discussion about the residents that living in gated community make a sense of their lives behind gates and walls, as well as the social consequences of their residential choices. Her point of view that gated community was intensifying the social segregation, racism, and raises a number of values conflict for residents.

"Living in a gated development contributes to resident's sense of well-being, but comes at the price of maintaining private guards and gates as well as conforming to extensive homeowners' association rules and regulations. Individual freedom and ease of access for residents must be limited in order to achieve greater privacy and social control for the community as a whole".

(Low, Setha)

In her study through interviews method, she found out that the residents inside gated community are not friendly, as in they are not well-communicating and interacting through each other.

Conc: Gated community can erode a neighborhood ties and people living inside gated community become selfish, stuck of mentalities and anti-social behavior. Moreover, gates send an unwelcoming message and and more worse, gates break up the neighborhoods.

"I live in gated rental community and it seems that everything is pretty nice and the management is ok. But I long for the sense of community, where people can have chances to interact with each other, but here everybody just doesn't talk to the neighbors that much. Gated communities are such significant phenomena in South Florida and I was so surprised to see that many when i moved here, which even triggered my research interests to find out whether the only purpose of the gates is to keep the alligators out (a friend's joke). Social isolation is so significant here and maybe gates do mean something about the status of class..." - quote from resident living in GC


(source : City-Data.com)

However, Gated Communities do have their advantages such as :

• No through traffic. The neighborhood is safer for children.
• Gated communities can be safer from crime.
• Home owners have private and exclusive access to sites.
• Property values in large gated communities show a better resistance to market fluctuations.
• Provides the public authorities with wealthy taxpayers, at no cost.
• The development can assist the social, environmental and economic regeneration of a neglected and run-down inner city district of abandoned factories and decaying homes.
  

Behind The Gates. . from Setha Low

Behind the Gates, Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America according to Setha Low, through her book; "Behind The Gates", there were some discussion about the residents that living in gated community make a sense of their lives behind gates and walls, as well as the social consequences of their residential choices. Her point of view that gated community has intensifying the social segregation, racism, and raises a number of values conflicts for residents.

Gated Community in Malaysia. . .

Shah Alam GCs development

GCs development in Sg.Bakap , Penang

Backdated Entry. . . Survey Project@KuLim

Here come a story of our Project no.3(sory for the late post). . . ermm. . in this project, we all have to do a survey project about the Quality Of Life (QOL) in 3 countries; Penang, Kedah n Perlis. . . n mine was in Kulim@Kedah! we were asked to find d respondent to fill the survey form that done by our lecturers. . it was a great experience because we had learn more things and try to get closed with community, know their problems,their comments bout the neighbourhood environment and the satisfaction of their life and the most greatest thing is the moments that we've been through. . actually there some problems we had during doing this survey like getting our respondents. Some of them are willing to cooperate with us and some of them are quit hard especially d respondents for d high cost but we are trying so hard to finished up. . Btw, here are the some pics I posted to share with. . .

d CooLim survey team
Wan is taking respondent ans. .
Go. . !Go! CooLim team (searching for d respondents)

Another Part. . . Behind The Scene

Here are the best memorable moments. . . on d 3rd day of our survey, we all went to Hutan Lipur Sedim day to get some refresh after doing some survey at morning since it was nearby and one way also to our site. . .korg jgn jeles~!

(A moments to remember =D)
It was a CooooooL team. . . . CooLim Grup!

Survey Project@Part 2

This is the part 2 of our survey project. . this part is about analyze the data that we have collected. . the data were analyze using the SPSS software. . this is new the things we had learned and we all studiomates are struggling on analyze the data since we have to present it to all the lecturers that involved in this project. .

d survey form and SPSS data analyze
Working mood (cafe bakti being our port)

After all presentation are finished, there are some makan-makan in our studio for celebrating and d menu was nasi kerabu and nasi tomato, not forget some kuih and fruits . . everyone were enjoyed it and as usual we all are exciting when it comes bout d makan-makan thing. . hehehehe~!

Makan tyme~!
Lecturers of QOL project. . .
Happy Face~!

Everyone were happy and enjoyable when this project were finished but there still an upcoming project that we have to think bout and get ready to struggle and get suffer. . . hahahaha~!

Gated Community. . .

Selfish behaviour, stuck up mentalities, ignorance and arrogance comes in place in for alarming percentage of them. Some may ask, are they not educated?But we'll surprised because how many of them that are living in this community are a professionals ranking themselves as engineers, managers, bussinessman and consultants.

Living in the Gated Community comes with the synonym of the word itself.
YOU ARE GATED!

Most of us invest in such property and willing to pay a high sum of money to purchased this kind property and decided that it is where there will bring up our family. We envisioned that having a place with security, clubhouse, playground and good neighbours ( is it really a good neighbours?), it will give us a total peace of mind for a many many years to come. But the question is : is it a good choice or do U MADE A BIG MISTAKE!

WHY GATED?
"Did we make a wise choice? Apparently we did but at a price!"

ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY, isn't it?Well, it can probably say that because if you are not able to get a bank loan to cover 85% of the house value for a link house, u can't afford to come in into this community. For the bungalow lot seekers, it will cost a cool 400K-700K to invest on the right size of the plot and then, you build your dream house on it.

So, its a shared plot of link houses bungalow lots, surrounded by an acceptable height fence that is trusted to offer some fundamental protection from outsiders to come in this community.

Why does someone want to stay gated and not otherwise. SECURITY! That's why! It comes to the point that people would like to return home and have a peaceful sleep without the need to worry about somebody plans to break in to your house. Imagine middle of the night, around 4am or so, someone crawls in to your bedroom and decides that its his day of glory? Not only he robs you of any money and jewellery kept in the house, but also of your personal privacy and honour.

Then comes also neighbourhood. You don't want ur neighbours to bring their chicken coop and construction materials to store right in front of their house. You'd probably also don't want them to rip down their house one sudden day and decide to build an impression of mansion by plunging in two roman pillars leading to their rooftop. Simply said; ugly, damaging and nasty.

Dont expect people of better profile fits in this community. Just like when you might go on for a residence-committee interview when buying an exclusive apartment in America. They want to make sure that the person occupying the building, in total communal sense, are of good character, good will and neighbourly. They normally mind their own business but feel much better knowing that you are of a better person as well.

Fantasies or facts?Is it discrimination, as how some intellectuals quite sometime ago debated on the concept of gated communities in Malaysia? No,its not. Its a right to choice, a preferred option to stay, at the affordability to pay and overall to render our own privacy within the communal environment.

Update! - RESEARCH PROPOSAL -

Hyeeeee.....(he..he..he..), it's been a long long time i didn't update diz blog. .why eh?is it im too busy with something else or it is because of my lazineeeess...haha!okayh. .now I update this continue talking about our Discourse. Hmm. . .now in our studio, we were asked to do some research about Quality Of Life and for now I'll doing some research due to my topic 'Community and Social Aspects' and I have choose to do about GATED COMMUNITY. Besides that, we also running to our project no 3 which is we must do a survey. .!(okay, dat I'll post in another topic).

Now..back to my tittle of study. .Gated Community can be assume as a new form of residential community in Malaysia. It had been built in urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur, Shah Alam and Penang. Gated Community is like a private club where access privileges ae required. The Gated Community is about the residential community dat built for safety reasons. Everyone wants to feel good and secure about their livelihood. However, if it were built to reduce crimes and what about the crimes that still occured outside?These also need to pay attention. And what we can see now, the Gated Community is about the social segregation or a form of social apartheid. It is because, usually, this area were occupied by the elitist group and they were lack of sense of community because they do not interact to each other. I was interested to make research on this topic after I've made some study..surfing internet of course! and I found there were many complaint from community that living outside the Gated Community and I think it was an interesting topic to talk about the Community and Social Aspects. Oookay. . dat for now. .I'll update later when I have something to share with u all.

Hmm. . .for friends outside, please give me ur comment or any suggestion on my topic...should I proceed on it or do u have any other suggestion for me to change or what?

Love Your Neighbourhoods. . .

A neighbourhood is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town or suburb. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members. Are you satisfied with the neighbourhood where you live?Are u satisfied with the neighbourhood where u work??And do u really really LOVE ur neigbourhoods??to make "our place" better, we should work together with the government. Our street is our street and we as a neigbors should all band together to avoid bad things from occur.

Prove that you care about ur community so let's participate!take action to make ur neigbourhood a safer place - but remember to make the action within the law. Bussiness and neigbourhood groups should also work together for COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT. May everyone on earth have true freedom.

Love ur Neigbourhoods!! ^_^