Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
The rise of the gated city in Latin America, as portrayed through the Mexican case described in previous chapters, is a symptom of a much deeper societal problem. Gated communities are the physical reflection of the region’s inequalities, fears, distrust in institutions, and fragmented social interactions. Urban fragmentation is the consequence of the concentration of pockets of privileged groups with differentiated access to exclusive residential and commercial spaces, as well as privatised options of services, urban mobility, leisure, sports, health, and education facilities. Planners are set to work in cities with strong tensions between those who can afford a residential option that provides a sense of security and exclusivity and the rest of the population, which feels excluded. The gating phenomenon is not just a response to local crime and violence; it is connected to global, national, regional, and local challenges. The multi-scalar and multi-dimensional approach of analysis presented in this book provides valuable material to planners and policy makers to refine their practice and find ways to reclaim the open city, which we can at least encounter in shared spaces, and diminish the physical barriers that make it harder for those in more vulnerable conditions to access opportunities.
Lomas de Angelópolis (Lomas) is a large-scale suburban gated community in Puebla’s metropolitan area that originated in the early 2000s with the expectation that it would provide around 21,000 housing units over 900 ha. This chapter focuses on the third scale of the gatedness analysis framework, in which the case study is analysed on a local level, mentioning the differences between stages of the research project. The analysis explores the conditions that enabled the construction of this gated city, emphasising deregulation, financialisation, municipal disarticulation, and the privatisation of urban management. It also explores the different cognitive dispositions regarding the enclave’s slogan, ‘Life as it should be’, its private governance, and the visions of a safe community. Finally, it explores the different physical borders that delimit the enclave, focusing on the differentiated lives of those inside and outside the fortified compound.
The Gated City offers a comprehensive analysis of the proliferation of gated communities, urban fragmentation, and the privatisation of public life in the Latin American context from a policy and practice perspective. The book engages with global debates about the increasingly locked-down, securitised, and elite nature of much city life and the possible ‘death of public life’ that many have suggested is occurring in cities today. It draws on original, in-depth research in one of the largest gated communities in the world, a comminity that exemplifies the tensions and conflicts that make it harder for planning professionals to provide more inclusive urban spaces. The argument comes from the different and sometimes contrasting experiences obtained through the author’s academic and personal planning practice in Mexico. The discussion offers valuable insights into policy and planning practices that are relevant worldwide under the current conditions of uncertainty, fear, and increased social inequality. The book provides elements of analysis for university students, policy makers, researchers, and urban studies instructors interested in better understanding exclusionary spaces. The Mexican case provides methodological tools for scholars and practitioners researching and presenting planning and policy-making alternatives against exclusion in cities and social inequalities.
This chapter explores the evolution of the urban gating phenomenon from the late 1990s to 2024. It presents debates over the last 30 years on how gated communities have been central to the broader normalisation of urban fragmentation as experienced in cities today. It explores the normalisation of gated communities and the main drivers behind their proliferation. It also presents a brief history of the gating phenomenon in Mexican cities and how it connects with the evolution of planned neighbourhoods with private investment. It concludes with the introduction of the practice-based gatedness analysis framework developed as part of the research behind this book, which focuses on the structural and administrative incentives, the cognitive-affective dispositions, and the physical boundaries and control measures behind the emergence and proliferation of gated communities.
Mexican cities are struggling with urban fragmentation due to growing concerns over crime, violence, inequalities, and uncertainty. Gated communities have proliferated in recent decades, not only as a response to such challenges but also as a response to structural conditions on global and national levels that facilitate their creation. This chapter focuses on the first scale of the gatedness analysis framework, exploring the global and national connections with the urban gating process in Mexico. It explores how neoliberal transnational policies and changes in national and housing policies, along with global financial forces and the debt economy, have enabled new fragmented urban configurations. It also addresses Mexico’s diminishing state and its impact on spatial planning. There is also an analysis of the aspirations and expectations of Mexican society, particularly the middle classes, and a discussion of the boundaries and control measures that define modern Mexican gated communities and a fragmented urban life. The core aim of this chapter is to reveal to the reader that the gating phenomenon is more complex than a group of individuals deciding to self-segregate, and that macro-level policies and social practices have a strong impact on urban life.
This chapter focuses on key discussions regarding urban life and exclusionary practices. The chapter begins with a critical review of urban studies about the connections between physical space and social interactions in cities around the world. It also discusses the privatisation of public life and the challenges of urban configurations that isolate, divide, and exclude. The last section focuses on debates around urban fragmentation, securitisation, and segregation. The role of planning is mentioned throughout the chapter as a reminder of how the profession is, in many cases, responsible for obtaining the opposite results of what is intended, which presents a need to question the treasured planning paradigms of the 20th century. It points out that the proliferation of gated communities is an important part of the configuration of fragmented cities, in which restriction of access, use, and ownership enhances the privatisation of public life.
The Mexican metropolisation process presents important challenges, particularly connected to the growing demands from peripheral municipalities to accommodate new residential developments. This chapter presents the second scale of the gatedness analysis framework focusing on a regional scale using the case study setting, Puebla’s metropolitan area. It explores how structural conditions such as regional planning policies, limited municipal capacities, and financial interests in suburban development can incentivise or constrain the gating process. It also explores how voluntary displacement, urban branding, and social practices connected to the privatisation of public life are instrumental in the appeal of gated urban life. Finally, it describes different physical barriers and control measures used in the city’s sprawling peripheries. This chapter presents the historical and structural conditions that paved the way for peripheral gated spaces while exploring the aspirations and anxieties that drove voluntary displacement to the suburbs and the factors behind extreme cases of fortification like the gated community Lomas de Angelópolis.
