What’s wrong with a wall?
There is much belly-aching that a wall along our border with Mexico would be a “Berlin Wall.” Apart from the boneheaded analogy - the wall, or fence, would be more like Hadrian’s Wall - 7 million of America’s household live in gated communities, according to a U.S. Census survey refered to by USA Today in December 2002:
* More than 7 million households — about 6% of the national total — are in developments behind walls and fences. About 4 million of that total are in communities where access is controlled by gates, entry codes, key cards or security guards.
* Homeowners in gated communities live in upscale and mostly white developments. But renters, who are more ethnically diverse and less affluent, are nearly 21/2 times as likely as homeowners to live behind gates or walls.
* Whether they own or rent, Hispanics are more likely to live in such communities than whites or blacks. That may be partly because there is a large Hispanic population in the West and Southwest, areas with the largest concentration of gated communities.
* Affluent African-American homeowners are less likely to live in gated communities than whites and Hispanics, even in metro areas such as Atlanta and Washington, D.C., which have a large black middle class. Experts theorize that after centuries of exclusion, blacks may be reluctant to embrace such a lifestyle or to live in predominantly white developments.
The article also claims that “[a]bout 40% of new homes in California are behind walls.”
