Co-evolution of gated communities and local public goods
Urban Studies: An International Journal of Research in Urban Studies
Published online on December 09, 2013
Abstract
Gated communities are often seen as steps towards the privatization of the public realm. This is too simple a characterization, however: privately and publicly governed infrastructure and services exist and adapt symbiotically. There is little empirical research focusing on the co-evolution of private and public neighbourhoods. In this paper we focus on a specific question that has not yet been answered: does the spatial pattern of privately supplied public goods co-evolve with the pattern of publicly supplied public goods? We examine this question through a case study of Seoul, where club residential communities are common enough to test co-evolution hypotheses. We identify co-evolutionary relationships between club goods supplied in condominiums and public goods supplied by municipalities and market. We also find evidence of Tieboutian intra-urban market and show how the substitution of club goods for positive urban externalities seems to weaken the influence of general accessibility on residential locational behaviour.