Shanghai Suburbia: Expatriate teenagers' age-specific experiences of gated community living

•Suburban gated communities in Shanghai comprise global and local housing concepts.•Estates chosen by expatriates provide a neighborhood of controlled heterogeneity.•Experiences of gated neighborhoods are age-specific.•Expatriate gated estates foster demarcation and impair relations to the city.•Teenagers seek activities outside the gates to form narratives of emplacement.

This article examines expatriate teenagers' experiences of residing in gated housing complexes in Shanghai. It builds on ethnographic fieldwork within the expatriate - mostly German - community, and draws from participant observation among international high school students. Comparing expatriate youths' reflections and experiences with those of younger children and mothers, this case study highlights the age-specific perspective of teenagers on gated community housing abroad. While gated neighborhoods are a common form of living in Shanghai, the upscale suburban compounds under scrutiny are mainly inhabited by corporate expatriates and reflect processes of privatization and gated community growth worldwide. Previous research and interviews with German mothers in Shanghai demonstrate that compound amenities, such as clubhouses, offer expatriates space for arrival, adjustment and community building. Investigating youths' daily practices, however, shows that teenagers make only limited use of them. While expatriate youths associate houses and bedrooms with notions of home, they relate the gated estates to boredom and borders. They voice a strong desire to transgress the borders of expat family housing estates and seek out places and activities outside the gates. Through nightlife and leisure activities teenagers build relations to the city of Shanghai and stage young, urban identities that help them form narratives of emplacement, something gated estates seem to impair.