Condomínios habitacionais fechados:(im)precisões conceptuais. Apontamentos para um debate sobre urbanidade

• Main Author: Marta Martins
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade do Porto 2013-07-01
• Series: Sociologia: Revista da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
• Subjects: closed residential condominium; segregation; quality of life
• Online Access: http://ler.letras.up.pt/uploads/ficheiros/11879.pdf

This article tackles the conceptual and historical inaccuracies that characterize some of the analogies and comparisons often established between closed residential condominiums and other forms and landscapes. It is argued that they undermine the analysis of the realities that, more or less metaphorically, are recurrently discussed both as perfect similar or perfect opposites. These remarks, along with results from fieldwork-experiences performed in Lisbon Metropolitan Area (2001- 2007), allow us to mark some useful notes, important to debate both the explanation and the comprehension of the dynamics and impacts underlying the rising and development of closed residential condominiums, regarded as real estate products