Gated communities and retirement villages, such as the Boynton Beach Club, are in danger of creating segregated enclaves in the US, according to Andrew D. Blechman, who warns that some “villages” are literally becoming a law unto themselves.

The world’s largest retirement community, [is] The Villages of Florida. It’s nearly twice the size of Manhattan, gated, and with a population that will top 110,000. Kids can visit, but they’re given guest passes that time out much like international visas. Children who overstay their limited welcome are basically reduced to the status of human contraband and their grandparents can be evicted for sheltering them.

Residents of “gated communities” often feel they are safer and more secure in such environments, though an article published a few years ago in Australia found they weren’t quite as crime-free as some residents believed them to be.

Research shows the walls do not prevent serious crime. “What it does say is that you can put yourself in a secure estate but at the end of the day most serious crime is not between strangers,” says Dr Murray Lee, a criminologist at the University of Western Sydney.