Until Utopia Arrives, What Is Wrong with Freedom of Choice

Until Utopia arrives, what is wrong with freedom of choice?

January 4, 2005, Glenn Ashton's remarks about gated communities ("Gates lock out social integration", Cape Times, January 3) refer.
I find his rose-tinted views of a perfect society immensely encouraging and I am sure communities across the globe share the view that one day Utopia will in fact come about with no need for anyone to be concerned about personal safety, happy to throw away their keys and delighted to share whatever you have whether worked for or not.
Until we reach that point, is it so repugnant that there should be freedom of choice in lifestyle? If someone prefers the bright lights, should they be forced to live in the country?
If a person chooses to live in a close-knit cultural/language/family/age, community, what's wrong with that?
Similarly if they wish to take reasonable precautions about the safety of their families or possessions, or - shock, horror - wish to live at a certain standard, must they be fingered as perpetuators of poverty and class?
I introduced the issue of gated communities to the planning and environment committee in the City of Cape Town about eight months ago for two very good reasons: the city is without a policy or an opinion about the matter and, from time to time, there are requests from individuals or communities from every corner of the city to close off a road or control access to particular areas.
Mindful of instances in our own and other South African cities where people have simply taken the law into their own hands, I have requested the city to go through the exercise of examining its own precedents, the policies of other cities and examine the planning and environmental aspects peculiar to Cape Town. Nothing wrong with that.
What concerns me is those who set their face against something without respecting other points of view. I am sure there is a good case to be made for the acceleration of integration.

I'll be more convinced when individuals from previously disadvantaged communities, who locate to wealthy suburbs, make it a priority to tear down the security walls that have been part of the problem in putting home ownership beyond the reach of most ordinary South Africans.
As a ward councillor for some of the leafier suburbs of Cape Town, I have not noticed, in the course of rapidly integrating neighbourhoods, that new homeowners are any more prepared to remove their gates, fire the security or leave the keys in the Merc, than those who have lived there for years.
There is no marked difference either in their levels of tolerance towards homeless people mining their garbage, fouling their pavements or importuning them at every intersection.
The millions spent on marking 10 years of democracy, seminars, interviews and adverts devoted to feel-good and another general election full of promises, are the real tools of integration, Ashton, not working up a froth about gated communities.
By the way, I recall expansive statements 10 years ago that our cabinet ministers would not be taking up residence in the buildings or the style of their apartheid predecessors, but would live in ordinary homes and perhaps have appropriate security.
Brilliant idea, no follow-up. Instead we have a presidential compound in Rondebosch tighter than the wartime premiership of General Smuts or PW Botha at the pinnacle of his paranoia.And the convoy that accompanied the acting premier to the circus at the Waterfront.Where's the social integration there?