Turning Inward In Fear

"Gated communities and their public counterparts reflect frustration. Citizens turn to such devices because they lack confidence in the normal vehicles for ensuring the safety of persons and property. To outsiders, gated communities do not resemble welcome mats; they indeed may be a lamentable example of turning inward. But the way to make gated communities unattractive not only to well-meaning critics (and to surly ideologues) but to the typical family is not to denounce them as racially or socially exclusive. The answer is to arrest the civic decline that leads many to turn to gated communities for physical safety and emotional piece of mind."