I read today that 15% of the US population now lives in some form of "gated community." The journalist reporting this seemed shocked and outraged by this statistic, but it didn't surprise me... it's simply a logical extension of white flight.

We live in the Turkish ghetto in North London and I'd like to list the things that we encounter here on a daily basis which we would probably miss out on if we lived in a gated community.

• Busted streetlights
• Puke on the sidewalk
• Snot on the sidewalk
• Lots and lots of litter
• Lots and lots of graffiti
• Dogshit on the sidewalk
• Drunks collapsed on the sidewalk
• Piles of garbage bags everywhere
• The ubiquitous smell of pot smoke
• Broken sidewalks strewn with rubble
• Abandoned cars with all the windows smashed out
• Beggars strategically positioned beside every ATM machine
• Sneering teenage mothers dragging screaming toddlers behind them
• Cars with the bass cranked so high that my fillings shake as they pass
• Packs of menacing young men who look like Eminem's long lost siblings

We're not complaining... we told the real estate agent that we did not want to live anywhere near investment bankers, Arab oil tycoons, or other groups of high class criminals. Also, the shish kebabs are excellent here and we are improving our 50 and 100 yard dash times every day.

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