Closed Condominiums as Urban Fragments of the Contemporary City

Contemporary cities have witnessed the emergence of new real-estate products in which gated communities and closed condominiums (CCs) can be included. The proliferation of these urban products is worldwide, with similar patterns that are analysed in this paper according to five perspectives of analysis: physical, economic, social, political and cultural. These perspectives cross-cut some of the main issues of discussion of the contemporary urban debate associated with private residential developments. These developments seem to appeal to an increasing number of social groups and have been able to adapt to different planning systems. With a smaller scale, these developments emerged in Portugal in the form of CCs, and are analysed in a case study in Greater Oporto. The purpose of this paper is to present the Portuguese singularities of this phenomenon in comparison with the worldwide dimension. In our case study we find some important particularities strongly associated with the Portuguese planning system. Some of these particularities have negative impacts on the surrounding urban landscape. As a result, CCs demand specific planning policies to counteract the negative consequences they are likely to generate in local social and urban fabrics. In the absence of these policies, CCs, as well as other private residential developments, are likely to contribute further to an increasingly fragmented and divided urban landscape.