Istanbul  witnessed since mid 1980s the emergence of an upper class of new money. Their hyper-activity, even their sheer presence within the urban texture blasted some old class positions. However, unable to differentiate themselves from the rest of the society through acquired social gesture, a sophisticated bourgeois culture, the new 'uncultivated' class preferred to take distance from the rest through practices of space, as well through symbols of status. 4x4 jeeps and sunglasses helped its members to make their way through the public space, usually experienced as an urban jungle. The security infrastructure of the new settlements behind the walls, the so called 'gated communities' made them feel 'untouchable' according to the assumed rules of that jungle.

However, the new form of living and the attached social behavior they provoked had also impact on older 'cultivated' upper classes as well as on upwardly mobile middle classes: The 'new urbanism' has quickly proven to be a  'snowball', as the industry responded quickly and also supplied a growing variety of different social groups with dwellings behind gates, which these welcomed and continue buying and demanding enthusiastically.

The common explanations for this dominant phenomenon of the new urbanism, 'the need for exclusivity as well  for security' however, need some further examination; as such they are just partial or even unsatisfying: The original generator, demand for exclusivity of the new aristocracy could anyway not be fully satisfied regarding the dynamics of a growing and transforming metropolis within rather tight topographical and ecological boundaries, in particularly given the activities of upwards oriented  social groups so closely positioned at their footsteps.

The dynamism behind a particular groups' search for exclusivity was soon transformed by an interaction of market, social and ideological forces into a broader consensus, that helps legitimizing every particular groups' own demand for its segregation from all others. On the other hand, Istanbul is for sure not a place that ranks high in criminal statistics of global metropolises. The demand for and supply of safety stands for a more complex socio-psychological motivation than a simple need for security vis a vis some petty criminality that might have possibly threatened the private spheres.

A closer look reveals the common denominator of various gated situations: These have the exclusive monopoly to supply a 'finished' built environment. The final 'finishing' is a built-in, integral part of any project. All sales agreements of real estate in such communities contain lists of clauses that prohibit structural changes after purchasing it: The so called gated communities are in fact communities of mutual commitment not to change, to accept their immediate built environment inside the walls as finished, by the very mediation of the industry that has fabricated it. What successfully marketed to those eager to buy is an assumed counter-image of an ever-unfinished city, that has cyclically been self-generating out of its own resources, a city that would per constitution remain unfinished.

In all regions of the urban world, the present moment is one of intense conflict over how cities are to be used and by whom.  Urbanization as a locus of social integration is probably finished even as a popular myth as the spaces and objects of urban life are appropriated as a means for making highly particularistic claims and solidifying zones of disengagement, thus rendering the ideals of interchange something increasingly abstract. In contexts of intensified contestation then, mediations that could provide even provisional anchorage and continuity to the uses made of the urban built and symbolic environments dissipate and thus how things in the city can be used can take on a wider range of meanings even as crisis becomes more pervasive. Territorial and cultural proximities thus do not facilitate collaboration or negotiation, so other forms of “coexistence” and complicity will have to ensue.  There may come to the fore new forms of intersection, where the impediments to previously unimaginable conjunctions of identities, objects, spaces, and bodies are removed, and thus new information and possibilities are permitted perhaps only momentary glimmers of existence.  Yet these moments may be sufficient for keeping open possibilities of urban living not yet thought, not yet having available the material underpinnings for any sustainable concretization, yet nonetheless alive.