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Author Topic: Anyone been to Europe?
clockwork
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posted 13 May 2003 05:49 PM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I overheard a conversation on Friday.. some locals (Toronto) with some foriegners (I think from France, although I could be wrong... there was someone that asked if they speak "Canadian French" and another talked about being from the country with a dictator... it's tough to easvdrop and carry on your own conversation...) and one of the girls with an accent asked what a "gated community" was.

The question intrigued me... are there a lot of gated communities around the world? Is it an American phenomenon? I'm sure their are exclusive communities all over... but gated?

[ 13 May 2003: Message edited by: clockwork ]


From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 13 May 2003 05:52 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Moving this to "out and about"...
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
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posted 13 May 2003 05:53 PM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What... is babble banter a gated forum?
From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
kuba walda
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posted 13 May 2003 06:05 PM      Profile for kuba walda        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We have quite a few gated communities - Soutehrn Vancouver Island. They are usually townhouses, with a golf course on the property. Personally, I would never live in one.
From: the garden | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
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posted 13 May 2003 06:16 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by clockwork:
The question intrigued me... are there a lot of gated communities around the world? Is it an American phenomenon? I'm sure their are exclusive communities all over... but gated?

Toronto has one or two, but yes, it really is an American phenomenon.

They piss me off for several reasons:

1. They deprive the city they are hived out of, of the property tax revenue that used to come from the land. Instead the residents remit money to the developer, who, of course, rakes in a very nice profit.

2. They're blatant statements of social exclusion. They say "we're too good for you, and we want to stay in our cloistered little oasis of plenty, so screw you." It is this attitude that, writ large, means the slow decline of the US spirit that was the driving force of other freedom-seeking movements in the world.

An old thread where I discuss gated communities in more detail


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 13 May 2003 06:24 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Isn't there an expression, "to be gated" -- ie, as in someone is gated -- that has a negative meaning -- as in, it's a punishment?

(google is frustrating on this front: it tells me that "to be" are irrelevant little words, refuses therefore to search the expression, and I therefore just get gated communities and gated language.)

There are certainly lots of enormous estates in Europe, not only grandly gated but seriously walled as well, but those tend to belong to individuals. I honestly don't know whether there are communities like the one in Florida that Mulroney and Chretien and the Westons go to golf in.


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ronb
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posted 13 May 2003 06:28 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In the boarding school I went to, gated meant grounded for the weekend.
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skdadl
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posted 13 May 2003 06:30 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's the expression, ronb. Thank you. You have sharp memories of the meaning, I see.

Amusing to associate the two usages, isn't it?


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Debra
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posted 13 May 2003 06:33 PM      Profile for Debra   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
skdadl here's a link to dictionary.com that has the meanings you're looking for
From: The only difference between graffiti & philosophy is the word fuck... | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
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posted 13 May 2003 06:34 PM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Merriam Webster says ": to punish by confinement to a campus or dormitory".
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ronb
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posted 13 May 2003 06:36 PM      Profile for ronb     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
You have sharp memories of the meaning, I see.


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skdadl
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posted 13 May 2003 06:40 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks, guys.

ronb: tsk, tsk.


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Debra
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posted 13 May 2003 06:41 PM      Profile for Debra   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I guess actually pasting in the link would have helped.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=%20gated


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lagatta
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posted 13 May 2003 06:51 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The other fun one, for skdadl, is "estates" - can mean a manor but also a "housing estate", that is public housing, what they call an HLM in French (here or in France) or "the projects" down in the states. As in "where he comes from is a very tough estate".

Gated communities are also found in countries with even greater extremes of wealth and poverty - in Argentina, where they are called "countries", in English, of all things, in Brazil, in South Africa.

I'm sure zoning bylaws could ban them, as they have banned Hells Angels bunkers here...

I've never seen any in Europe. Of course there are tony developments - some of the things I've seen by the seaside, be it the North Sea or the Mediterranean, are certainly not for the common folk - and fancy apartment buildings with guards on duty, but I've never seen gated communities as such. Doesn't mean they might not exist. Wouldn't be survived if such a horrid idea, along with the worst excesses of mafioso-robber-baron capitalism, has been imported to some of the former Soviet bloc countries.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 13 May 2003 07:02 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What always charms me are the hotels (lagatta, could you explain that word?) in European cities -- originally mansions built around a courtyard, now divided up into separate houses and flats -- that have a great gate on the courtyard, usually permanently open, given the multiple tenancy.

Even wee Stirling has a few of those up on the heights, on the way to the castle, in the old town.

Those courtyards somehow manage to look, to me, anyway, both essentially urban and charmingly rustic at the same time.


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lagatta
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posted 13 May 2003 08:47 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
An old meaning of hotel - hostel and hospital are related words - as an aristocratic urban dwelling. Lots of those have been subdivided into housing round courtyards. I'm sure the courtyards were originally used to store stuff, keep chickens, grow some vegetables, and so forth. This type of housing was found round the Mediterranean world, and is very much a feature of the Arab world to this day. Interesting that it can be found as far north as Stirling.

I've been to Stirling Ontario (rather wee too) but not the Scottish original.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mohamad Khan
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posted 14 May 2003 01:00 AM      Profile for Mohamad Khan   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Gated communities are also found in countries with even greater extremes of wealth and poverty - in Argentina, where they are called "countries", in English, of all things, in Brazil, in South Africa.

ha! how appropriate.


From: "Glorified Harlem": Morningside Heights, NYC | Registered: Nov 2001  |  IP: Logged
clockwork
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posted 14 May 2003 03:55 PM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Gated communities are in Saudi Arabia, too:

quote:
But in many ways it is a cloistered life. The Saudi royal family and the strict Muslim religious establishment do not encourage mingling, but are content to see the proliferation of gated communities for foreigners and there are more than 58 in Riyadh alone.

Like most foreigners, Kimberly and her family live in one of these heavily guarded complexes with names like Sahara Towers and Arizona Golf Resort that replicate a North American lifestyle down to the golf courses and supermarkets.


Behind the gates, expatriates weigh risks


From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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