Im folgenden Beitrag setzt sich die Monika Komorowska mit Gated Communities auseinander, die in Warschau in den letzten Jahren ein bestimmendes Element der Stadt geworden sind. Der Artikel ist Teil der demnächst anstehenden Publikation zum städtebaulichen Workshops Warschau – Berlin, der an der TU Berlin und der Politechnika Warschau durchgeführt wurde.
The gate to Marina Mokot??w, with divided acess for inhabitants and guests. (Foto: M. Komorowska)
The development of Warsaw is bubble-like. During the twenty years that have passed from the fall of communism, the city has been growing chaotically without the general long-term strategy. The key word to this period is privatization, not only in relation to the economy, but also to space. Predominantly lacking master plans, Warsaw grew according to the most exuberant ideas of developers welcomed by the city authorities. This is the reason why, when visiting Warsaw for the fi rst time, it is easier to fi nd a commercial center, then a true center of Warsaw. The malls with their controlled access and illusion of a street life – are not the only example of privatization of space, retail bubbles appeared on the map of Warsaw as quickly as housing bubbles.
My home is my fortress_ in the city of walls
The gated communities in Warsaw differ in size and in standard but their common features are: the wall, the fence, the video surveillance and presence of the security company. Their number is being estimated for over 400. Does it mean that Warsaw is particularly dangerous city? On the contrary, Polish capital has relatively low crime indicators. Why then people want to live in fortresses? The reason is the subjectively perceived danger and characteristics of Poles, as having very little confi dence in the State and its institutions, as well as in other people. Therefore, via hiding behind the walls people want to guarantee their own safety. Those who can aff ord it are the winners of the years of transformation: mostly young, educated, white collar workers that constitute Polish middle and upper middle class. Quickly gained new high status needed its symbols, and that was another factor for the successes of gated communities. Developers understood it and created housing estates as branded products off ering more than an apartment but as it was advertised – a new lifestyle. Advertising strategies underline the safety and create an Arcadian image of perfect place to live, full of greenery, self suffi cient with the entire needed infrastructure. The names of the estates like: Green Hill, Eko-Park, Sunny Meadow are to evoke the associations with luxury, security, family and a friendly neighborhood. The most spectacular example of such an estate is Marina Mokot??w. Half way between the city center and the airport, on the boarder of an old district of Mokot??w and covering the area of nearly 30 ha, a huge island on the city map was created. The plan of the investment was designed by the well known architect Stefan Kury?Çowicz. The regulations required big percentage of green areas and non intensive architecture. The estates range from single and multifamily villas to block of fl ats. In the middle of the estate there is an artifi cial pond where according to the developer: “inhabitants could walk and relax like in Warsaw Royal Residence”. Here again what was sold was prestige, but what was created was a proper spatial and social phenomenon worth closer examination.
Initially Marina was planned to be open to the public; only buildings should be gated. But as the city did not want to participate in costs of greenery and roads maintenance, the developer closed the whole area. There are only two bridge-like connections to the city, with huge signs M and G that stand for inhabitants and guests. There is the security guard kiosk where the guests have to declare the reason for the visit and inhabitants show their pass. This fortifi cation like access is nothing else than a traffi c jam generator, because it is easy to persuade the guardian that you are going to a shop or a café to enter. Once you enter, there is a square with the map of the estate and you notice the video surveillance right away and lot of gates and videophones, each of the blocks of fl ats has its separate guardian kiosk in the same style of the architecture estate. This “space of security” is to intimidate unwanted behavior, but what it created is artifi ciality of living between fences. The green areas with small architecture did not help to build the community. Benches are scattered in isolation. Those, who use this space, are most often the nannies. The first inhabitants started living here in 2005 but there are still many empty apartments as many were bought for speculative purposes, often by foreign investors. The cafés, attracting only a few customers, were closed, and Marina turned out to be yet another dormitory for people working till late hours to pay back the credits not only for the apartments, but a guarantee to be isolated from the “stranger”: the looser, the poor, the diff erent. They want the uniqueness of the lifestyle shared with others like them. Controlled panopticon like “public” space of the estate assures that the inhabitants would not be exposed to other confl icted lifestyle or behavior so obviously present in the streets of the contemporary cities.
Shape of the city_ shape of the society
One could assume that the fences of the gated communities should at least bring their inhabitants together. This is not the case. People living in estates like Marina would more likely meet in the internet forum to discuss their problems e.g. with parking places than talk in the street, where they scrutinize each other in order to see if everything is under control. Isolation is being mixed up with individualism. Looking for explanation of this phenomenon, sociologists underline the passage from the state where everything was public that in most cases meant none”s, to the need for privacy. It is more than understandable that people look for this division, but fi nding the proper balance between it is not easy. And gating large parts of the city, as it happens not only with new estates, but also to older structures, where fences are build up, is anti-urban. In such no-democratically space the bonds of the civil society will remain weak.
The question of what city do we want to live in, is political. It is more and more often asked by the inhabitants of the gated communities that feel cheated by the developers and the city authorities, who are not able to guarantee the basic city services in the new developments (e.g. roads, education). One example is “Miasteczko Wilan??w” (Wilan??w Town) – a partly implemented housing development on 170 ha in the outskirts of Warsaw that was planned and promoted
to be infrastructural independent. Now over 2.000 of its current inhabitants suff er from lack of proper roads, kindergartens and schools. The same happens to the promoted theater and community center – which should be built, according to the glossy advertising leafl ets with fancy renderings and smiling people. The new inhabitants have quickly learned that advertisement is not an agreement. When there is no master plan outlining the rules of spatial development, the investor is free to decide either to build a school or other apartments. Today “miasteczko” that
was meant to be a livable part of Warsaw became predominantly tiring suburban experience. This is best example of the anti-arcadian character of the gated communities.
Monika Komorowska
