The closed city and its diversification as a challenge of the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico

The phenomenon of gated communities has evolved into a dynamic and complex object that has transformed Latin American Cities over the last decades. The Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, Mexico, is also undergoing a retransformation of this concept. The "success" of gated residential areas in Guadalajara has been defined by the inclusion of a new economic strata into this fortified housing scheme. Fifteen percent of the built city are characterized by the modality of limited access due to physical barriers that have caused a fragmentation of this territory. Through the implementation of a geo-referenced database, a spatial analysis of the phenomenon has been accomplished in this Mexican city, showing results that confirm the conceptual modifications that several researchers have identified and that are causing a stratification of this housing model.