For three hours, spread over two afternoons, I had the great privilege of following Frankie on his ‘‘mission’’ of security through one of several ‘‘gated communities’’ that have grown up on the perimeter of Miami. My thanks to him.

"Gated communities present new problems for American metropolises. These enclosed residential neighbourhoods, guarded 24h/24, supporting a leisure-based lifestyle, are constructed of homogeneous parts on the model of private villas. Today they represent not just gilded ghettos, but products for consumption by the middle and upper-middle classes. Moreover, the high internal consistency of these neighbourhoods is produced by processes of selection, based on age, ethnic and social affiliation, and also religion. Some even get their political independence by creating their own municipality in order to capture available fiscal resources and to establish their local sovereignty."

(extrait du Texte de la conférence du samedi 5 octobre 2002 deRenaud LE GOIX au salon géomatique du FIG de Saint Dié. Université Paris 1, UFR de Géographie - http://fig-st-die.education.fr/actes/actes_2002/legoix/article.htm)