Lexicon: Gated Community

DEFINITION gat•ed com•mu•ni•ty n. A neighborhood, often surrounded by barriers, to which entry is restricted to residents and guests

CONTEXT The U.S. plan to build walls around at least 10 violent regions in Baghdad has drawn widespread criticism in Iraq--especially from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who thinks walls will aggravate sectarian violence. But the military insists that these "communities," in which U.S. troops will use fingerprint scanning to monitor residents, reinforce safety.

USAGE The phrase typically describes clusters in wealthy U.S. areas, not a ravaged Iraqi city. Baghdad's model is based on a system implemented during Vietnam. Those "hamlets" failed, but a similar tactic worked for France, which fought insurgents in Algiers in the '50s