Housing Experience in Gated Communities in the Time of Pandemics: Lessons Learned from COVID-19

Gated communities constitute an important component of the contemporary city in many countries, and the adequacy of such communities as a housing option has attracted the attention of researchers and policy makers from various backgrounds. However, it is unclear how gated communities will be perceived and reconsidered following the COVID-19 pandemic and whether this type of community will become more common. Thus, this study aims to investigate housing experience of gated community residents during the pandemic with reference to the urban context of Saudi Arabia. To this end, the residents of a selected gated community were surveyed using a structured questionnaire to identify the urban and architectural design factors that have affected their housing experience during the pandemic compared to that of the residents of non-gated communities. It was concluded that despite the criticism gated communities have received, they offered a safer and more controlled housing environment during the pandemic from the residents’ point of view, which may create additional housing demands for this type of residential community in the future. This requires further investigation for ascertaining how this may affect the housing market dynamics and strategies.