Guard-Gated Tears
Once you get above a certain dollar amount, all the new-construction neighborhoods in Las Vegas have gates. And it's not like Minnesota, where that dollar amount is a median home value of somewhere over $1.5 million; around here, it's somewhere around $315,000. At first, this really put me off, since the idea of a "gated community" is not very well-thought-out. Doesn't everyone know that the gates don't work? You can just follow somebody in, or just wave to the guard... or, I guess, you can just climb over the wall. But the longer I spend living in this city, the more I find myself buying in to the idea of a gated neighborhood. It's stupid, I know, but so many of the developments around here have gates -- including our apartment complex -- that the ones without gates start to stand out a little bit. You start to wonder why there's no gate and how cheap the houses are.
There are four levels of developments here in the Valley: no gate, single-gated, guard-gated, and double-guard-gated. The developments without gates are just surrounded by a wall and are just like anywhere else. The single-gated developments have one gate at the entrance to the development, but you gain entry with just a security card or a security code (our apartment complex is one of these). The guard-gated developments usually have an elaborately manicured entryway, all of which have two ways in: one for residents and one for guests. Both of these entries are supervised by a self-important guard in a silly uniform who separates the sheep from the goats and chooses who can go in. Apparently, the function of the double-guard-gated communities is to protect those who are very rich from those who are only somewhat rich.
Since I have yet to go inside a guard-gated community here in Las Vegas, I can only guess at what the scene must be like by the second gate in the double-guard-gated developments, but I imagine that it's something like this: thousands of middle-management executives and casino pit-bosses are lined up against the wall surrounding the inner community, many of them weeping freely. They clutch large, bulbous suitcases to their chests, and their wives and children are carrying lamps and framed photographs; to wit, they carry all their worldly possessions with them. Some of them are bruised and covered with scabs from the frequent beatings by the guards at the second gate. None of them can understand why they are being denied the opportunity to have an audience with the princes inside the inner wall. One man, a kindly junior VP at International Gaming Technologies, kneels down to brush tears away from his young daughter's cheeks. "We'll be inside soon, pumpkin. Daddy's going to take care of it." He wants to say more, but he is silenced as his face becomes a mass of mangled bone; Julio the Head Guard demands silence from those waiting, and enforces this rule with a thirty-eight inch lead pipe.
Down the line a ways from the now-sobbing IGT executive, a family huddles together under the shade of a torrey pine. The mother is the head of marketing at Wynn Las Vegas and the father runs the VIP at OPM; their children, Mordechai and Ari, attend the Las Vegas Day School. They have brought their personal rabbi with them, and he is pouring out shabbas wine. As they drink, the rabbi intones, "Next year in--"
"In Jerusalem, rabbi?" suggests Ari, who, after all, is only six.
"No, my child. Next year inside the second gate at Queensridge."
The mother and father nod gravely and drink their wine. Perhaps, if they are lucky, God will hear their prayers.
CLARIFICATION: A double-guard-gated community is a gated development within another gated development. To enter, you go first through the gate that leads from the street to the private drive... and then you pass through another gate with another set of guards into the Holiest of Holies. Just so we're clear on that.
There are four levels of developments here in the Valley: no gate, single-gated, guard-gated, and double-guard-gated. The developments without gates are just surrounded by a wall and are just like anywhere else. The single-gated developments have one gate at the entrance to the development, but you gain entry with just a security card or a security code (our apartment complex is one of these). The guard-gated developments usually have an elaborately manicured entryway, all of which have two ways in: one for residents and one for guests. Both of these entries are supervised by a self-important guard in a silly uniform who separates the sheep from the goats and chooses who can go in. Apparently, the function of the double-guard-gated communities is to protect those who are very rich from those who are only somewhat rich.
Since I have yet to go inside a guard-gated community here in Las Vegas, I can only guess at what the scene must be like by the second gate in the double-guard-gated developments, but I imagine that it's something like this: thousands of middle-management executives and casino pit-bosses are lined up against the wall surrounding the inner community, many of them weeping freely. They clutch large, bulbous suitcases to their chests, and their wives and children are carrying lamps and framed photographs; to wit, they carry all their worldly possessions with them. Some of them are bruised and covered with scabs from the frequent beatings by the guards at the second gate. None of them can understand why they are being denied the opportunity to have an audience with the princes inside the inner wall. One man, a kindly junior VP at International Gaming Technologies, kneels down to brush tears away from his young daughter's cheeks. "We'll be inside soon, pumpkin. Daddy's going to take care of it." He wants to say more, but he is silenced as his face becomes a mass of mangled bone; Julio the Head Guard demands silence from those waiting, and enforces this rule with a thirty-eight inch lead pipe.
Down the line a ways from the now-sobbing IGT executive, a family huddles together under the shade of a torrey pine. The mother is the head of marketing at Wynn Las Vegas and the father runs the VIP at OPM; their children, Mordechai and Ari, attend the Las Vegas Day School. They have brought their personal rabbi with them, and he is pouring out shabbas wine. As they drink, the rabbi intones, "Next year in--"
"In Jerusalem, rabbi?" suggests Ari, who, after all, is only six.
"No, my child. Next year inside the second gate at Queensridge."
The mother and father nod gravely and drink their wine. Perhaps, if they are lucky, God will hear their prayers.
CLARIFICATION: A double-guard-gated community is a gated development within another gated development. To enter, you go first through the gate that leads from the street to the private drive... and then you pass through another gate with another set of guards into the Holiest of Holies. Just so we're clear on that.
posted by Buckwalter at 10:56 AM
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