What is really different between cohousing and gated communities?

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on differences and similarities between two types of intentional private residential communities: cohousing and gated communities. The academic debate is dominated by the view that cohousing and gated communities are completely different phenomena in terms of aims, goals, nature and characteristics. However, I do not find these opinions entirely convincing: hence, in this paper, I shall discuss some of their weaknesses with regard to the (alleged) differences between cohousing and gated communities in terms of the reasons guiding the choice of the community, openness of communal spaces and the speculative nature of the projects. Some critical perspectives in terms of public policy are introduced in the last part of the paper.

KEYWORDS:

• Cohousing
• gated communities
• homeowners associations
• housing
• community

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Among non-constitutive features there are, for instance, some architectural or psychological characteristics. These are certainly important from an analytical viewpoint (or from the point of view of a person who decides to buy a house in one of these communities). However, they appear to be of secondary importance in regard, for instance, to analysing their externalities on the surrounding areas, or to deciding a public policy. It is for this reason that I do not consider them in this paper.

2. Different names can be found in the literature to denote this phenomenon. Among them: homeowners associations, common interest communities, intentional communities, privately governed communities and contractual communities.

3. ‘Varietas' is one of the last rungs of the taxonomical ladder. Distinctions among elements in the ‘varietas' category are sometimes not very clear – this is why ‘varietas' is not considered by the most rigorous systems of taxonomical classification.

4. Another related point should be stressed. The simplistic reduction of ownership to only two models (the private one and the public one) is insufficient when dealing with many urban issues: urban reality is far more complex. It is therefore better to break these two models down into a set of subcategories, each characterized not only by different forms of control and management, but also by different rules of access and conduct (see Chiodelli & Moroni, 2014). This implies, for instance, that not all the private spaces are closed and exclusionary (i.e. are characterized by a high degree of restriction of access and conduct). This is, for instance, the case of common spaces in many private residential communities, which may be open to a large number of people. At the same time, not all the public spaces are completely open (i.e. without restrictions of access and conduct); on the contrary, some of them are characterized by severe restrictions of access and behaviour (indeed, in certain cases, we could say that they are more exclusionary than some private spaces). On this topic, see for instance: Blomley (2009), Ellickson (1996), Moroni and Chiodelli (2014), Teir (1998) and Valverde (2005, 2009).

5. For a discussion on land trusts, see, among others: Brewer (2004), Eizenberg (2012), Hodge and Adams (2012), and Logan and Wekerle (2008).

6. For a different view on this point, see for instance: Manzi and Smith-Bowers (2005), Salcedo and Torres (2004), Walks (2014), and Webster (2001).

7. These arguments have been developed in more detail in Chiodelli and Baglione (2014).

8. In my opinion, the intentions and declared values of residents cannot be taken into consideration to justify any kind of public support. Even if the declared values of co-housers (e.g. mutual aid, solidarity and sustainability) are good and desirable, they are not sufficient for grounding a public policy.

9. See also Sullivan (2015) on the spatial insulation and physical closure of the Sunrise Place cohousing community in the US.