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Many scholars have been pointing out that neither these communities are more secure, or crime rates are actually rising, especially if we consider the numbers in relative and proportional terms. The culture (or industry!) of fear in increasingly bigger urban places influences not only the way people use, see, feel, and build public spaces, but also the way we buy and idealise our private places, the way we live in our houses. The condominium industry seems to be happy with that... Some (like Fabio Duarte and Klaus Frey or Tereza Caldeira and Maria Sposito) consider we are renouncing and fearing the city, denying urban life, as we prefer to live enclosed
in private enclaves fully-equiped with sports facilities, cinema, gyms, and even houses and apartments, in what Brazilian estate companies are calling "living clubs" (clubes de morar): "where you feel safe, relaxed and at home, all in just one place". Is that what we really want to our cities (a conglomerate of walled and secured enclaves - of different socioeconomic categories - like in the Mexican film "La Zona" or "Zona do Crime" as it is known in Brazil)? I pass!!! And we are starting to see (and discuss) how some ways of living (like more in isolation, surrounded by ubiquitous taken-for-granted-technology, surrounded by walls, in fear, etc.) might very well not be part of the solution to other urban problems. I hope the numbers shown by The Economist (released by the Brazilian Ministry of Health) are, at least partially, true and continue their current tendency of crime rates fall. So that condos enthusiats will have to find other excuses to keep walling our cities.
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