Urban Life
Can Segregation be a Value?

Associated with luxury and the upper class, gated communities are now also spreading as a housing model for the poorest. By selling the idea of homogeneity in unequal Latin American societies, they stand for the restriction of freedom of movement and make living together in the city more difficult.

By Juliana Vaz

The Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos experienced what he later wrote down in his Memórias do Cárcere (Prison Memoirs) behind the bars of the former Frei Caneca prison. The psychiatrist Nise da Silveira and the communist activist Olga Benario were also imprisoned there. Today, the grounds of the country’s first prison established during imperial times in Rio de Janeiro are no longer home to important personalities from culture and politics, but to low-income families in two closed housing complexes. The social housing, surrounded by bars and barbed wire, also has a guardhouse with a porter and walls that, as in the old days, demarcate who is inside and who has to stay outside.

“It’s the best housing estate, there’s no drug dealing here like elsewhere,” says Patrícia Alves*, 31, a resident of the current Zé Ketti housing block. She has been able to realise her dream of owning her own flat here, having moved from the morro of São Carlos next door to the complex built-in 2014 as part of the central government’s Minha Casa Minha Vida (My Home My Life) housing programme at the time. “What’s bad, though, is that the monthly fees are so expensive. We weren’t used to paying for something like that. I’m unemployed. How am I going to manage? It’s impossible with young children,” explains the mother of two.

Traditionally associated with luxury and the upper class, closed housing complexes, so-called condominios, the most famous of which is Alphaville, opened in São Paulo in the 1970s, are now also being built as housing for the poorer population. According to experts, the Brazilian housing policy of the last decade prioritises this option, which is also the most favourable for the real estate industry.

“Security and exclusivity”

The gated community is not only a status symbol, but also a symbol of a notion of security and exclusivity, whereby the social housing variant offers far less in comparison to the elite’s complexes with their golf courses and cinemas. For the poorer, moving into a gated community means not only home ownership but also discipline by social workers, explains Beatriz Rufino from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of São Paulo. “Many people moved into the condominiums from socially deprived areas, and it was totally shocking for them. They weren’t used to following rules of living together, such as adhering to certain noise levels in their living area. For these families, moving to the condominium means a restriction of their freedom,” she says.

Sprawling cities

Unlike the Zé Ketti housing development in the Estácio neighbourhood in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, social housing developments located in outlying areas often lead to further urban sprawl far from public services and shops. According to experts, a compact city is more inclusive and sustainable because it uses existing urban infrastructure.

The real estate sector associates the value of the gated community with the promise of living there “among equals,” notes geographer Maria Encarnação Beltrão Sposito of São Paulo State University and author of the book Espaços fechados e cidades (Enclosed Spaces and Cities). “There are luxury housing estates, middle-class housing estates and even lower-middle-class ones, each aimed at a particular income group. Consequently, the idea of social homogeneity is sold in a society of deep-rooted inequality,” she says. “Segregation becomes a value in itself, a social differentiator: ‘I am different from the others.’ From the city’s point of view, this represents a historical break. Since antiquity, the city has been the site of differences, confrontation, tension, of contestation and contradiction. This affects the components of democracy.”

Chilean sociologist Ricardo Greene, whose doctoral thesis focused on the highly luxurious Nordelta housing complex in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, explains that the walls don’t completely prevent the coming and going of individuals from different social classes, but always subject them to control. “A country [Argentine term for gated community], which is usually defined by a certain socio-economic status, is exclusive and marks segregation. That doesn’t mean that ‘others’ can’t get in there, because these residential areas need domestic workers, security guards and construction workers, but they are only allowed in under strict security and undergo constant surveillance. It is a dream for only a few,” he says. Although observed as a phenomenon worldwide, gated communities are particularly spreading in Latin America, as they are considered places to retreat to in a region with high urban violence and an increased rate of assaults and robberies.

Reappropriation of coexistence

In a metropolis like São Paulo, recent urban renewal measures are encouraging densification in areas along public transport lines and challenging “fortified enclaves,” as anthropologist Teresa Caldeira calls the closed housing estates. Avenida Rebouças in the centre of the city is currently experiencing a wave of urban revitalisation through construction initiatives to upgrade pedestrian zones with open façades and ground floor shops. “Giving the street back to the pedestrians” is the slogan of one of these initiatives to mix shops and housing in the same high-rise building, promising interaction with public space. Many of these buildings have no underground parking, which is intended to encourage residents to walk or cycle, in turn revitalising street life: “A location that facilitates mobility, giving back to São Paulo’s inhabitants the hours wasted in traffic and thus increasing the quality of life.”

According to Beatriz Rufino, residential development – whether horizontal or vertical – remains the most profitable form of value creation in the Brazilian real estate sector. However, a change is underway here: In the past, people were sold the option of withdrawing from the city, today, in turn, they are also sold the return to the city.

“This new type of housing development is obviously the answer to a number of problems created by the previous gated housing estates: a lack of public coexistence,” says the architect. But in her view, the new initiatives are not yet inclusive enough. “From a technical and architectural point of view, it’s great to make a place more open, but this movement, which at first sight is supposed to have a democratising effect on the city, creates a new level of elitism: flats for rent on Airbnb, studios for upper-class young people, and thus predominantly intended as an investment,” clarifies Rufino.

*Name changed by the editors at the interviewee’s request.