Free Leisureville by Andrew D. Blechman Page A

representative of how an increasing number of Americans live. More than 10 million Americans live in communities protected by some form of fortification. Forty percent of new home construction in America’s sunbelt is gated; in some communities, it’s difficult to find middle- and upper-income housing that
isn’t
gated. In an age of globalization, building moats at home has become something of a national pastime.
    This trend has been seen for many years in South America, where members of the wealthy elite barricade themselves from the multitudes of the poor; and in the Middle East, where western workers take cover from an increasingly angry local population. In America, the main reason for turning one’s community into a fortress is ostensibly to reduce crime. Yet studies have found that long-term crime rates are only slightly altered. Regardless, Americans want their slice of paradise gated, with a uniformed Saint Peter.
    Gates create a gated mentality, which is quite contagious. The debate over illegal immigration was heating up when I was visiting The Villages. I can’t say I was particularly surprised by one resident’s solution to the problem, published in the
Daily Sun
: build a bigger wall.
    Even after my arrival, I continue to find the nomenclature of “the village” and “The Villages” frustratingly vague and confusing. That’s because there is no real taxonomic definition for what The Villages itself considers a “village” to be. From what I can tell, a “village” is little more than a monotonous grouping of similarly priced ranch homes built on spec by the Morse family. There are about fifty villages in The Villages, although the development is expected to continue growing at a breathless pace. Most have distinguished-sounding yet meaningless names such as “Village of Lynnhaven” or “Village of Winifred.”
    A village can range in size from several dozen of these spec homes to hundreds of them, with the underlying principle being financialsegregation and preservation of assets. As one realtor in The Villages explains to me, “You wouldn’t want a basic ranch home next to your ‘premier’ home. We can guarantee that your home will be surrounded by a product line just like yours.”
    Except for the occasional recreation area and clubhouse, each village looks basically like any other suburban subdivision, with its mostly dead-end residential streets that curve aimlessly. Besides the front door, the visual centerpiece of each home is the driveway and garage; there are no sidewalks and few if any front porches.
    There is nothing about these housing clusters that even slightly resembles a “village” in the traditional sense. There are no cafés, no corner stores, no newsstands. No commercial enterprise of any sort is allowed to take place within a village. Planned developments like The Villages generally spurn the one thing that make traditional cities and towns so varied and entertaining: mixed use. Commerce is shunted to a “commercial zone,” i.e., strip malls, which one must drive to in either a golf cart or a conventional automobile.
    Developers and home buyers believe that such measures will protect and even enhance property values. According to this reasoning, the opening of a corner café, let alone the construction of a home worth ten percent less than yours, could put your investment at risk.
    This thirst for standardization and stability is also why deed restrictions are so popular with home buyers, who pay a premium to live under them. Tens of millions of Americans have voluntarily given up certain liberties to live under private covenants enforced by fellow residents because they no longer trust their neighbors (who are increasingly transient) to do the right thing. For many communities, deed restrictions are a source of pride, and signs are posted at entrance gates proudly declaring their