Guayaquil, an old colonial city and port that is host to the largest population in Ecuador, can be used as a relevant case study to analyze modern social housing projects that were constructed in a particular period in which a great number of State-funded housing programs were developed; these framed a city-model that was different to the current disperse urban development model. This research addresses the transformations that have come about in the communal space within these housing programs as a response to dynamics that are part of social segregation and spatial fragmentation. These processes have been brought on by an accelerated loss of communal space to exclusive individualism, which tries to avoid an increasing material and symbolic violence.