Quotes & Sayings About Gated Communities

In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions.
[Why Societies Collapse, ABC Local, July 17, 2003] — Jared Diamond

Whether the vessel is a legal document or a rap song, language is often chosen ot exclude. To use a scholarly phrase, "discourse communities" are often gated,so it's the good writer's job to offer readers a set of keys. — Roy Peter Clark

From the outset, the drug war could have been waged primarily in overwhelmingly white suburbs or on college campuses. SWAT teams could have rappelled from helicopters in gated suburban communities and raided the homes of high school lacrosse players known for hosting coke and ecstasy parties after their games. The police could have seized televisions, furniture, and cash from fraternity houses based on an anonymous tip that a few joints or a stash of cocaine could be found hidden in someone's dresser drawer. Suburban homemakers could have been placed under surveillance and subjected to undercover operations designed to catch them violating laws regulating the use and sale of prescription "uppers." All of this could have happened as a matter of routine in white communities, but it did not. — Michelle Alexander

There are challenges as far as underfunding in various parts of the city. But spirit and sense of community is so much stronger in the places we've been. In Hollywood and Beverly Hills for example, people stay to themselves and live away from others in their gated communities. Despite being a native West Angelino, I had never really felt a strong sense of community until "South Of Wilshire". I now feel it because of the show. — Harvey Levin

Countries around the world provide frightening examples of what happens to societies when they reach the level of inequality toward which we are moving. It is not a pretty picture: countries where the rich live in gated communities, waited upon by hordes of low-income workers; unstable political systems where populists promise the masses a better life, only to disappoint. Perhaps most importantly, there is an absence of hope. In these countries, the poor know that their prospects of emerging from poverty, let along making it to the top, are minuscule. This is not something we should be striving for. — Joseph E. Stiglitz

The American Society of Civil Engineers said in 2007 that the U.S. had fallen so far behind in maintaining its public infrastructure
roads, bridges, schools, dams
that it would take more than a trillion and half dollars over five years to bring it back up to standard. Instead, these types of expenditures are being cut back. At the same time, public infrastructure around the world is facing unprecedented stress, with hurricanes, cyclones, floods and forest fires all increasing in frequency and intensity. It's easy to imagine a future in which growing numbers of cities have their frail and long-neglected infrastructures knocked out by disasters and then are left to rot, their core services never repaired or rehabilitated. The well-off, meanwhile, will withdraw into gated communities, their needs met by privatized providers. — Naomi Klein

The problem with the evangelical homeschool movement was not their desire to educate their children at home, or in private religious schools, but the evangelical impulse to "protect" children from ideas that might lead them to "question" and to keep them cloistered in what amounted to a series of one-family gated communities. — Frank Schaeffer

Life isn't about having, it's about being. You could surround yourself with all that money can buy, and you'd still be as miserable as a human can be. I know people with perfect bodies who don't have half the happiness I've found. On my journeys I've seen more joy in the slums of Mumbai and the orphanages of Africa than in wealthy gated communities and on sprawling estates worth millions. Why is that? You'll find contentment when your talents and passion are completely engaged, in full force. Recognise instant self-gratification for what it is. Resist the temptation to grab for material objects like the perfect house, the coolest clothes or the hottest car. The if I just had X, I would be happy syndrome is a mass delusion. When you look for happiness in mere objects, they are never enough. Look around. Look within. — Nick Vujicic

The leaders of these moments know full well they're never gonna live next to these newly arriving immigrants. They're gonna live in gated communities. They're gonna continue to be rich. — Rush Limbaugh

We live increasingly in a world of haves and have-nots, of gated communities next to ghettos, of extreme poverty and unbelievable riches. Some enjoy rights that are completely denied to others. Relative inequalities are exploding, and the world's poorest, despite all the advances of globalisation, may even be getting poorer. — Noreena Hertz

Sandy illustrated the depraved mentality of an oligarchic and corporate elite that, as conditions worsen, retreats into self-contained gated communities, guts basic services, and abandons the wider population. — Chris Hedges

One of those gated communities where there's one token African-American couple and four token Jewish couples. Children and vegetarians are not allowed. Residents must vote Republican and own small dogs with rhinestone collars, stupid eyes, and names that end in i. Taffi is good, Cassi is better, and something like Rififi is the total shit. — Stephen King

There comes a point when you need to get over the fear and get on with your life, and a lot of people don't seem to be capable of that anymore. From blood tests to gated communities, we have embraced the cult of fear, and now we don't seem to know how to put it back where it belongs. — Mira Grant

We urgently need to bring to our communities the limitless capacity to love, serve, and create for and with each other. We urgently need to bring the neighbor back into our hoods, not only in our inner cities but also in our suburbs, our gated communities, on Main Street and Wall Street, and on Ivy League campuses. — Grace Lee Boggs