TY - JOUR PY - 2019// TI - The security grills on apartments in gated communities: trading-off 3D and 2D landscapes of fear in China JO - Cities A1 - Sun, Guibo A1 - Webster, Chris SP - 113 EP - 121 VL - 90 IS - N2 - In China, as elsewhere, gates are symbolically or actually associated with an escape from crime and insecurity. The manifest phenomenon of security grills on apartments inside gated communities, as a recent retrofitting, is not well understood. We conducted a household survey of 2404 participants in 46 communities in a city, to investigate why China's gated community apartments have ubiquitously installed security grills.

RESULTS show gated communities have relatively low crime rates, but 84% of residents believed their gates could not prevent penetration by non-residents. For a unit increase of the belief in the inefficacy of 2D security (community's gates and guards) when holding other factors at a fixed value, there is an 18% increase in the probability of trading-off to install 3D security (grills on the individual apartment). The prevalence of apartment-based security grills, representing a phase-change in the dominant mode of the landscape of fear, is highly relevant to current ungating policy context that is urging a rethink about gated community development.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 0264-2751 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.003 ID - ref1 ER -