Urban fragmentation under the sprawl of gated communities : taking Wuhan as a case study

Abstract

In contemporary society with housing construction in full swing, ‘Gated Community’ has become a new phenomenon that soundlessly changing the way people lives. ‘Gated’ means ‘safe’ and ‘private’, but it is also associated with ‘segregation’ and ‘differentiation’. This contradictory concept has rich connotations that are concerning not only physical space and urban structure but also social stability and economical fairness, etc.

To have better understanding of Gated Communities and their impacts, the dissertation has taken Wuhan, one of the famous metropolises in China, as an illustration. Through observing the quality of physical environment (size and scale, boundary form and environment, road system, public facilities, and open space), analyzing the relationship between public space and private sector, and evaluating process of property development and management, we learnt that huge-sized GCs led incompleteness of urban branch road system, making urban structure fragmented, and income-based segregation contributed to many social problems as well as unreasonable allocation of public faculties, etc. Based on these evaluations, many optimization strategies have been formulated. For example, from spatial perspective, we can relief this situation through scale and size control, mixed land use, boundary optimization, social integration and policy formulation. From administrative perspective, current land leasing mode needs to be changed into a better-planned one. The development rights, property rights, and management responsibilities need to be clearly divided and some affordable housing strategies need to be adopted, etc.