Darren New wrote:

> Stefan Viljoen wrote:
>> Amazing! So in the US this is done too? I'm assuming though you live in
>> some kind of gated community, not on a public, municipal plot?
> 
> Correct.
> 
> The way it works is, the builder buys a big plot of land. (400+ houses
.
.
.
> parents have been in their house 50+ years. Nobody cares if the fence they
> have is the right type or is too close to the border of their property.)
> 
> Welcome to civilization. :-)

Hehe... amazing. We've got something similar here, but it is only for
ultra-rich folks who got -really- huge wads of cash. And they mostly do it
for security. In South Africa, when you say "gated compound" it usually
means an expensive, high-security -compound- - one with 12 or even 14 foot
high walls, barbed wire at the top, seismic sensors in the ground, 24 hour
armed patrols, an armored, guarded gatepost, very bright security lights,
etc.

Some of these places even have specially extended walls that go up to 8 or
10 feet down into the ground to preclude people tunneling in. ("Dainfern"
in South Africa's Gauteng province is an example.) Not that it helps much,
people still get regularly murdered, raped, robbed and shot even inside
these "compounds".

As for the rest of what you say, it truly is civilization. Here it -used- to
be like you describe, but most of it has stopped, and people pretty much do
what they want. The laws are on most municipality's books, but they are not
enforced. 90% of the time is is simply a kind of "don't care" from
municipal officials, 10% of the time it is corruption or the officials are
threatened if they try to enforce the law.

Since the proportion of the population that live in typically African
shanty-towns is constantly growing, these kinds of by-law or ordinances
have become virtually forgotten / unknown - by definition a squatter camp
is not planned at all. Fires are famous in there - the smallest fire often
turns into a major disaster since no building codes are observed - shacks
are too close together, illegal electrical connections, wooden
construction... etc.
-- 
Stefan Viljoen

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