In Puebla's metropolitan area in Mexico, hundreds of fortified residential developments have helped to reconfigure the fabric of the city's sprawling periphery since the turn of the century. Two of these enclaves particularly caught my eye. They shared the typical markers of a gated community: fences or walls surrounding a group of houses, streets, and other amenities (Low, 2010), security-controlled access gates, and extra layers of protection, privacy, and security represented by security guards, CCTV cameras, and private dead-end streets or cul-de-sacs. Nevertheless, these developments targeted very different socioeconomic groups: where one was aimed at the low-income population, the other attracted a combination of middle-and high-income groups. I was curious about the design of public spaces such as parks, streets, and shared sports and leisure facilities in the residential developments. I wondered if the residents saw and experienced their public spaces differently. First, did they see these spaces as merely ornamental? And, second, were these spaces contributing to community life?

I engaged a small group of architecture students to explore these questions, and the results were unexpected – the main findings were not about the quality of the design of the parks, streets, or clubhouses. First, residents in these gated communities were very sensitive about their decision to live in such a community and felt judged by outsiders for doing so – in fact, a couple of residents we spoke to rushed to justify themselves before the interview even started. Second, residents were far less interested in responding to our questions about using the parks or the quality of the open spaces than sharing the fears, aspirations, anxieties, and hopes that motivated them to move to these enclaves.