LE GOIX R., 2004 (accepté, en cours de publication), « Gated communities sprawl in Southern California and social segregation», Housing Studies, numéro à préciser.

Abstract : 
Gated communities, which are walled and gated residential neighborhoods, represent a form of urbanism where public spaces are privatized. In the U.S., they represent a substantial part of the new housing market, especially in the recently urbanized areas. They have thus become a symbol of metropolitan fragmentation. This paper focuses on how local governments consider them as a valuable source of revenue because suburbanization costs are paid by the private developers and the final homebuyer, and how this form of public – private partnership in the provision of urban infrastructure ultimately increases local segregation. An empirical study in the Los Angeles region aims to evaluate this impact on socio-economic and ethnic patterns using factorial analysis (dissimilarity indices). As a result, the sprawl of gated communities increase segregation. Very significant socio-economic dissimilarities are found to be associated with the enclosure, thus defining very homogeneous territories, especially on income and age criteria. But gated communities are located in ethnic buffer zones and stress an exclusion that is structured at a municipal scale.
Keywords : Gated communities, urban sprawl, segregation