Abstract
SUMMARY Human beings have always concerned about their survival and tried to solve this issue by covering security requirements. This concern is not solely related to life but also properties. Therefore, providing the feeling of security is in a higher rank in the hierarchy of requirements. In this context, the most important place to provide the feeling of security is the residential area. This study aims to investigate social and urban separation of the minuscule neighborhood units known as `gated communities` which have recently led to an important controversy in city planning, which have served to upper class as a novel ideal urban life style, which are supposed to be free of renowned city problems, designed rather according to security concern, and completely isolated by both physical gates and social activities, and to identify the factors such as social solidarity, feeling of belonging to the living place and face-to-face relations within the neighborhood unit. In order to interprete the reflection of these theoretical investigations onto the city of Istanbul, a Bosphorus village Arnavutköy which has been preferred by upper socioeconomic class, which could not spare itself from the impact of illegal constructions, and which -consequently- comprises both the gated communities and neighboring illegal constructions.
