Why people choose gated communities: A case study of Alexandria metropolitan area

Nowadays, the prevailing housing development trend is gated communities. This trend has been one of the most widespread pattern of development in the last quarter of the twentieth century across the globe as well as in Egypt. Gated communities are built with a variety of sizes and types that differ from country to another, city to another, and from the gated community itself to another. To date, there are hundreds of gated residential communities that are developed across the Egyptian cities with a quite number of residents who prefer to live in those gated residential communities over the ordinary neighborhood. This study attempts to investigate the reason of residents' preference to gated over the non-gated residential areas of Alexandria city, what they are searching in this new trend?This paper argues that each resident prefers living in gated communities searching for certain values, which could be sense of community, or prestige, or lifestyle, or security. Focusing on the perspective of residents of Alexandria toward gated communities, this paper uses a methodology based on observation and qualitative exploration through a questionnaire. The findings show that the ‘life style’ is main value associated with the preferences of residents to live in such communities in Alexandria. Keywords: Gated communities, Residents of Alexandria city, Residential preferences, Residential neighborhoods