Criticism
Proponents of gated communities (and to a lesser degree, of culs-de-sac) maintain that the reduction or exclusion of people that would just be passing through, or more generally, of all non-locals, makes any "stranger" much more recognisable in the closed local environment, and thus reduces crime danger. This view has been attacked as unrealistic - since only a very small proportion of all non-locals passing through the area are potential criminals, increased traffic should increase rather than decrease safety by having more people around whose presence could deter criminal behaviour or who could provide assistance during an incident.
Another criticism is that gated communities offer a false sense of security. Some studies indicate that safety in gated communities may be more illusion than reality, showing that gated communities in suburban areas of the United States have no less crime than similar non-gated neighborhoods.
Read more about this topic: Gated Community
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)
“Unless criticism refuses to take itself quite so seriously or at least to permit its readers not to, it will inevitably continue to reflect the finicky canons of the genteel tradition and the depressing pieties of the Culture Religion of Modernism.”
—Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917)
“As far as criticism is concerned, we don’t resent that unless it is absolutely biased, as it is in most cases.”
—John Vorster (1915–1983)