[seanmcdirmid]

Almost all of the projects built in the last 10-15 years years are self contained walled apartment communities with multiple building surrounding a courtyard/common area.

In Beijing, you just have to get out of the third ring road before these are very common. The first placed I lived in was not like that, it was an older building in a fairly urban area, but after that it was a bunch of complexes (nicer apartments, it was difficult to find something nice outside of a complex), still only a few blocks away from restaurants (or a mall), but all with guarded gates.

It really shows when you want to go somewhere. You can just go from point A to point B, you can’t cut across the huge apartment complex in the middle, you have to instead go around it...that can get really annoying. Likewise, there are only a few roads that let you get between places (eg trying to go from northeast Beijing to sanlitun area, there is only one way across the airport expressway before it ends).

[xhruso00]

There are more non-walk friendly cities like Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok. KL - everything is walled private property and one can't use shortcuts throughout buildings like I am used in Europe. In Bangkok it's those "sois" which stems from main roads which are not interwoven. To go 100m from soi 48 to soi 49 I have to go back to main road which can be total walking distance of 1-1.5km. PS: I love those cities for everything else.

[seanmcdirmid]

It’s not just the complexes, every kind of campus in China is gated, like university campuses. It was a bit of a culture shock for me as a western American, but I’ve also seen this happen in east (Harvard) and some old campuses in Europe.

It does make life for pedestrians difficult.

[tonyedgecombe]

Tourism has taken its toll in European university towns, it would be too disruptive to leave them open. It’s a shame as I would love to attend lectures in Oxford but it’s completely cut off from the public.

[rezeroed]

These sound like a lot of London's new build complexes. I imaging China's are bigger, but as you say, "self contained walled apartment communities with multiple building surrounding a courtyard/common area".

[Brakenshire]

The closest London has to this is the Barbican from the 60’s, which is still mostly open to the public, or Georgian squares with gardens in the centre closed to the public, which still have road access between the houses and gardens. Large new developments like Nine Elms, Greenwich Peninsula and Elephant and Castle as far as I know always have public thoroughfares. I can’t think of any recent development that could be described as a superblock or a gated community.

London does have a lot more open space which is in fact privately owned, which limits your rights in that space, but that is a separate issue.

[rezeroed]

"I imaging China's are bigger ... self contained walled apartment communities with multiple building surrounding a courtyard/common area".

"I can’t think of any recent development that could be described as a superblock or a gated community."

Walled and gated are not the same, and smaller than superblock is probably not superblock.