part 2 of 2 parts

own small town. Elderly inhabitants have even debated whether to
incorporate as a self-contained city.
   But the barricading of neighborhoods and closing of streets to
nonresidents are used to battle crime in urban areas, too.
   Two years ago, the Los Angeles Police Department launched
Operation Cul-de-Sac in which gang-infested streets are blocked to
through traffic and police patrol the area on foot.
   In embattled South Central, the program brought an immediate 40
percent drop in drive-by shootings and drug dealing arrests.
Officials in Chicago have been so impressed with the program that
they hope to block off streets in every ward, starting this summer.
   Still, some officials see a dangerous precedent in closing off
communities. Particularly distressed is Los Angeles City
Councilwoman Rita Walters.
   "When these gates go up, they're saying `keep out' and `we're
different than you,"' said Walters, who has asked the city to devise
a new policy for dealing with all the barricade applications.
   "We're all more alike than we are different," Walters said. "We
all surely want a safe neighborhood and some hope of improving our
economic conditions. Putting gates around communities does not help
that."
   Last month, a Superior Court judge ruled that state law was
violated when a Hollywood Hills enclave was given permission to
install traffic gates. Los Angeles provide equal access to public
streets, the judge ruled.
   Currently, there are 34 pending applications for gated Los
Angeles communities and 113 requests for partial street closures,
according to Public Works Department spokesman Bob Hayes.
   Heretofore, the city has decided such applications on a
case-by-case basis, Hayes said. But over the last five years, as
crime statistics grew and the city's police budget shrank, residents
increasingly turned to barricades and street closures as preventive
measures, he said.
   Hayes doubts, however, that crime is the lone impetus.
   "People tell me all kinds of things," he said. "They always mention crime and
traffic congestion, but that may not always be the case. The truth is, the
driving force may really be increasing their property values."
   Neighborhood groups admit that if they are allowed to gate their
communities, real estate values can climb as much as 40 percent in
10 years.
   Others, though, say property values have nothing to do with it.
   In South Central, site of last spring's brutal race riots, the
LAPD's Operation Cul-de-Sac and the enclave of Athens Heights are
two areas where self-preservation is the prime motivating factor for
limiting access.
   Operation Cul-de-Sac receives little opposition from residents,
said Sgt. Len Hundshaner. "Violent crime got to the point where it
was virtually nonexistent," Hundshaner said of the project's
immediate results.
   Unfortunately, budget cuts have curtailed patrols, and crime has
gradually risen in the last year, he said.
   In nearby Athens Heights, a middle-class enclave predominately
populated by blacks, the local homeowners' association won approval
from the city to install a gate across Athens Boulevard and to
barricade other streets.
   Crime and traffic plummeted. Residents who had chosen to stay and
fight felt they had won.
   "Everyone's talking about moving out of L.A.," Athens Heights
Community Association President Kwasi Geiggar said in an interview
last summer. "Where you gonna run to?"
   To Hidden Valley resident Basham, running is not the answer. Nor
is being apologetic about wanting to protect private property.
   Especially when he remembers that motorists trying to use his
housing tract as a shortcut to nearby Interstate 5 had vandalized
and rammed several previous gates.
   "It just got to the point where it was no longer feasible to keep
paying for these kinds of repairs," he said. "We looked at many
types of systems and this appeared to be the only one that was
vandalproof."
   Nor does Hidden Valley's car impaler seem a drastic measure to
Basham.
  "If it were a public street, it would be a different issue," he
said. "But it's private property, maintained at homeowners'
expense."