Brane world supersymmetry, detuning, flipping and orbifolding

We emphasize the necessity of a delicate interplay between the gauge and gravitational sectors of five-dimensional brane worlds in creating phenomenologically relevant vacua. We discuss locally supersymmetric brane worlds with unflipped and flipped fermionic boundary conditions and with matter on the branes. We point out that a natural separation between the gauge and gravity sectors, very difficult in models with true extra dimensions, may be achieved in 4d models with deconstructed dimensions.