The rise and fall of Amerin gayborhoods - Vox

Contents:

• THE 'GAYTRIFITN' EFFECT: WHY GAY NEIGHBOURHOODS ARE BEG PRICED OUT
• THE TOP FIVE EMERGG GAY NEIGHBORHOODS OF AMERI
• MEET THE NEW GAYBORHOODS OF THE US
• ARE “GAY” AND “QUEER-FRIENDLY” NEIGHBORHOODS HEALTHY? ASSSG HOW AREAS WH HIGH DENSI OF SAME-SEX COUPL IMPACT THE MENTAL HEALTH OF SEXUAL MORY AND MAJORY YOUNG ADULTS
• “THE WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD IS BEG GAY!” REFLECTNS ON THE EFFECTS OF GEOLOTED DATG APPS ON THE PRACTICE AND PERCEPTN OF THE URBAN SPACE OF GAY MEN MAJOR FRENCH CI
• WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOUR GAYBORHOOD? UNRSTANDG POPULATN CHANGE AND CULTURAL SHIFTS LGBTQ+ NEIGHBORHOODS
• GAY PRI
• THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERIN GAYBORHOODS
• WHAT IS A GAYBORHOOD?
• ONCE A CCIAL REFUGE, ‘GAYBORHOODS’ LOSE L.G.B.T.Q. RINTS MAJOR CI

THE 'GAYTRIFITN' EFFECT: WHY GAY NEIGHBOURHOODS ARE BEG PRICED OUT

Affluent and unhampered by children – or so the myth go – this group is always the g vanguard of gentrifyg areas, pricg out long-term lols and leavg behd a trail of look-but-don’t-touch furnure shops and overpriced are urban gay people who are watchg their stutns and neighbourhoods disappear merely reapg what they sowed? The muny anisatn LGBT Detro has been tryg to enurage the (unofficial) foundg of a gay village the cy, as a way of providg more solidary and support for a muny that’s weaker for beg geographilly the anisatn’s director Curtis Lipsb explas: “We had a few areas where LGBT people moved to after the send world war, but they lasted only until the last major whe flight, when a large number of whe gays and lbians moved to the northern suburbs. The Mile High Cy hosted one of the first pri paras the USA, gay anizatns (like The Colorado Gay Roo Associatn) were thrivg the early 80s, was one of the first municipali to adopt an anti-discrimatn policy 1990, and PriFt ranks as one of the largt gay pri week- ends Ameri wh more than 350, 000 people celebratg.

On The Marlama’s ial “gay-trifitn, ” lols would pot their fger to Club JAM, a gay bar that opened 2007 and first planted LGBT roots the neighborhood, “When Club JAM opened 2007, was the first domo that got thgs movg the Marmala neighborhood, ” says club owner and young entreprenr Jason Olsen. For example, Green’s (2008) rearch of a gay enclave New York Cy suggts that there may be a llective stat orr many gay neighborhoods that strongly favors whe men, addn to those who are young, mascule, and middle-class, As a rult, women, nonwh, and other lower stat rints may be more vulnerable to poor mental health out (Green 2008) Neighborhoods and Heterosexual Rints. As prr studi have shown, gay and queer-iendly neighborhoods also may be plac where young sexual mori may enunter antigay vlence, subcultural norms that promote risky behavrs, cludg substance e, heavy drkg, and risky sexual behavrs, as well as var forms of social excln, cludg by race, class, and genr (Buttram and Kurtz 2012; Carpiano et al.

This visibily of gay men everyday life is one of the reasons why Joel Simkhai, the creator of Grdr, veloped the applitn: “Grdr, fs your pocket, you n e by walkg, at the rtrant, at the gym, when you go abroad, on the b, when you que a shop, when you go to a ncert, ” he explaed an terview given to the French magaze Miroir/Mirroirs 2013, before addg that “Grdr acpani you everyday life and that is what mak the difference. Even if is hard to measure the phenomenon, fake profil are very mon: the creatn of a profile often only requir an email addrs, and is que possible for the same person to create several ’s e, and more generally datg applitns, strongly renfigure homosexual spatiali, by partng the visibily of homosexualy om the historil centrali that have bee gay neighbourhoods and muny plac, and by allowg enunters everywhere, at least theory.

THE TOP FIVE EMERGG GAY NEIGHBORHOODS OF AMERI

The succs of Grdr-type applitns among gays, and their failure wh lbians, is th partly explaed by relatnships to genred and asymmetril productn of hybrid spatiali th appears strongt for datg apps siar to Grdr, and the most nsely populated plac, that is, the large metropolis where populatn nsi and nnectns only require participants to go a few hundred meters to pletely renew the profil displayed. Ghaziani, however, qualifi the ia of a cle of gay neighbourhoods and shows that their centraly, though seemgly weakened, remas pable, both mds and dividual applitns have unniably accelerated the diversifitn dynamics as they -terrorialise the ma functn of muny plac which was to form safe spac nducive to teractns between homosexual dividuals (Miller, 2015). Even if the Marais has been affected by the same dynamics of the apparent cle gay neighbourhoods as elsewhere, remas the richt area LGBT bs, both Paris and the relative discretn of homosexual life the provc and the ntrastg valy of the Marais, g to Paris to live one’s homosexualy is a stcturg element of the gay imagary France.

This ia of “pockets of gay time/space” is que siar to what Grdr produc nsely populated spac and helps to unrstand the enthiasm of many men for the app, as explaed by Richard, for example, rememberg when he disvered the app: “I knew when Grdr was lnched, and by the way, was a b revolutnary, I remember, and I already had a smartphone so I found credibly fantastic. In many ways, the revelatn of urban -prence among applitn ers seems to create a bubble of homosexualy around them, dimishg the sense of lonels associated wh the visibily of sexual mori on a daily addn, there is a greater nnectn between plac equented daily or regularly and the geography of datg. The management of geolotn by dividuals th reveals the renfiguratn of junctns to visibily, stcturg the trajectori of lkage between everyday spac and the experience of homosexualy that applitns perm giv rise to multiple forms of negotiatn the way of makg onelf visible on the virtual terface.

MEET THE NEW GAYBORHOODS OF THE US

(Photo by the thor 2021)Full size imageThe e of applitns spac is already strongly nducive to gay socialisg; provis even greater potential for dat by offerg new channels of teractn wh the spac, as shown by ethnographic works muny settgs (Stempfhuber & Liegl, 2016; Vorobjovas-Pta & Dalla-Fontana, 2019). Bdette nducted a long ethnographic survey Tokyo’s historic gay neighbourhood and found that the tensive e of applitns and social works bars and clubs, for the young men he met and terviewed, helps to make the Ni-Chome district “both a physil ‘gay town’ and an ‘imagary’ affective space” (Bdette, 2019: 102). Apart om intifyg as LGBTQ+, a high-e Black female cis-genred lbian, for example, her journey to unrstand and exprs her own sexual orientatn, may have ltle mon wh a middle-e gay genr-queer Asian male who both may have ltle mon wh a middle-age Whe genr-nonnformg trans dividual quietly explorg bisexualy at mid-life.

ARE “GAY” AND “QUEER-FRIENDLY” NEIGHBORHOODS HEALTHY? ASSSG HOW AREAS WH HIGH DENSI OF SAME-SEX COUPL IMPACT THE MENTAL HEALTH OF SEXUAL MORY AND MAJORY YOUNG ADULTS

It is the differenc that fuel a grassroots mobilizatn among LGBTQ+ people to persevere through adversy; gay neighborhoods th serve as cubators for empowerment and social change and serve as home base for social movements and the fight for equaly that ultimately benefs every rner of society. 1(Source Image urty of William Ivancic)In Chigo and other ci, rints of gay neighborhoods adapt to COVID-19 guil cludg mask wearg and spatial distancgFull size image2 Nomenclature: Everyone BelongsThe semantics of “gay” have changed over time and the chang reflect shifts attu and shifts the evolutn of mastream perceptn. In this ve, although many gay neighborhoods were historilly anchored by a populatn of gay cis men (Chncey 2008; Podmore 2021), we nsir a “gay” neighborhood to be urban space wh some gree of tolerance clive of gay men, lbian women, trans+ dividuals, tersex dividuals, qutng dividuals, and var other sexual among like-md people, LGBTQ+ rints sought llective secury to addrs their feelgs of disenanchisement and safeguard agast opprsn manifted hostily and vlence (Lria and Knopp 1985).

Throughout this chapter and this book, we nsir a neighborhood to be a basic buildg block of a cy (Forsyth 2001), and for nvenience we terchangeably e the terms “gayborhood, ” “gay neighborhood, ” “gay enclave, ” “gay district, ” “gay village” and “LGBTQ+ neighborhood”; we acknowledge the limatns of the labels. Gay neighborhoods emerged over this perd as a safe haven for ee exprsn and a rpe for all manner of people ostracized or shunned by mastream society om prosecutn, judgement, and gay neighborhoods were seed the settlement and movement pattern of sexual mori begng the first half of the twentieth century, and the history of gay neighborhoods is well documented lerature (Chncey 2008; Ghaziani 2015a; Higgs 1999; Niedt 2021; Orne 2017). Origal and inic LGBTQ+ neighborhoods— large ci such as Berl (Schöneberg), Istanbul (Taksim Square), London (Ltle Compton Street), Los Angel (Wt Hollywood, which beme Ameri’s first gay cy), Mexi Cy (Zona Rosa), Miami (South Beach), New York (Greenwich Village and Chelsea), Paris (LeMarais), Sydney (Oxford Street), San Francis (the Castro), São Plo (Rua Frei Cane), Tokyo (Ni-chōme), Toronto (Church Street), and Washgton, DC (DuPont Circle)—tered maly to gay men (lbians often did not have a notable prence).

Each gay neighborhood has s own unique reasons for beg and circumstanc for velopment (Gorman-Murray and Nash 2021) and nsequently the velopment and evolutn of dividual gayborhoods large urban centers—perceived as the “natural space” for gays and lbians (Higgs 1999)—opportuni gay neighborhoods for leisure and socializatn brought together the formative elements for the velopment of muny. 2(Source Image urty of Daniel Baldw Hs)The gay village Manchter, England, surrounds Canal Street and is one of the largt gay neighborhoods anywhereFull size imageMany people intifyg as LGBTQ+ seek eedom of personal exprsn, while others seek anonymy gay neighborhoods, where they n live their liv ee of judgement or persecutn. Gay neighborhoods and their rints have been wily accepted as signifint forc leadg and advotg for posive urban change and have rced the effects of LGBTQ+ mory stat by helpg to enhance people’s unrstandg about sexual mori (Doan and Higgs 2011; Gorman-Murray and Nash 2021), and LGBTQ+ muny members—and ed all of society—n experience an improved qualy of life when there is an creased level of neighborhoods also provid a means of entry for mastream society to better unrstand LGBTQ+ dividuals and LGBTQ+ culture.

“THE WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD IS BEG GAY!” REFLECTNS ON THE EFFECTS OF GEOLOTED DATG APPS ON THE PRACTICE AND PERCEPTN OF THE URBAN SPACE OF GAY MEN MAJOR FRENCH CI

As a rult, the gay neighborhoods were ually passed over for large publicly-fund urban renewal projects (Gorman-Murray and Nash 2021), thereby protectg the tegry of the built environment and often sparg the neighborhoods om the urban planng missteps mon the mid- to late-twentieth century (Jabs 1961). 4(Source Image urty of Daniel Baldw Hs)The Zona Rosa (“Pk Zone” English) is loted near the historic center of Mexi Cy and featur retail outlets and nightlife venu amid a gay munyFull size imageEstablished gay neighborhoods now embody a virtual dimensn for LGBTQ+ nnectn (Mil 2021), perhaps refg the importance of physil place.

The closure of gay bars, emergg virtual gay spac, generatnal disnnect, and chang the character of gay neighborhoods are remrs that as the plac transn om beg home to generatns rooted stggle to playgrounds of generatns beneftg om that stggle, now may be a germane time to exame the prent plate the trajectory of gay neighborhoods. The lol, natnal, and global upheaval related to the COVID-19 panmic will likely change how people live and perceive urban neighborhoods, perhaps stigatg further—and at prent unknowable—transformatn to recent books have provid var perspectiv on the velopment, growth, and change of gay neighborhoods (Notaro 2020; Ryan 2020; Crawford-Lackey and Sprgate 2020; Martel et al. Consequently, chapters wh the book give special attentn to two phenomena particular: (1) the forc of gentrifitn that have changed the character of gay districts durg the last two s (Hs 2019; Bterman 2020), phg out long-time gay and lbian rints as the number of non-LGBTQ+ rints and visors creas; and (2) the changg views toward gayborhoods of succsive generatns of LGBTQ+ rints, wh generatnal-attudal perspectiv as a signifint factor changg mand among LGTBQ+ groups for gayborhoods (see Fig.

Accuracy of broadly applible asssments regardg “the emergence of” or “the ath of” gay neighborhoods is challengg given the legal, social, and enomic landsp and what may be happeng one gay neighborhood may not parallel what is happeng acknowledge the var limatns that this eded volume prents. The most accsible plac for some male same-sex upl, for example, clu enomilly vibrant, “child-iendly, ” mostly suburban neighborhoods where they may feel unwele or not accepted (Sprg 2021), which monstrat difference sential requirements for different groups unr the LGBTQ+ umbrella to create gay neighborhoods. Many rearchers have vtigated the impact of gentrifitn on gay villag cludg the displacement of LGBTQ+ merce and hoeholds and the “-gayg” or the loss of LGBTQ+ nsumers and the tegratn of the broar public to lol markets (Doan and Higgs 2011; Ghaziani 2014; Gorman-Murray and Nash 2016; Rutg 2008).

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE YOUR GAYBORHOOD? UNRSTANDG POPULATN CHANGE AND CULTURAL SHIFTS LGBTQ+ NEIGHBORHOODS

We nclu this sectn by observg that while gayborhoods have experienced a certa level of -gayg, the trend toward viewg gayborhoods as clive and gay-iendly plac -emphasiz the self-segregatn aspects of gayborhoods that were important to their ial formatn (Moss 2017); while gay neighborhoods bee ls gay, other neighborhoods bee more gay.

Onle environments and apps may perhaps facilate the cle of gay neighborhoods, permtg LGBTQ+ people to stter om gay villag to new rintial settgs across metropolan space: “queer datg and hook-up apps are varly blamed for stroyg gay neighborhoods and celebrated for revigoratg them; dismissed as impediments to queer muny by some and hypothized by others as virtual s for new and often liberatory muni of their own” (Mil 2021, 210). The disappearance of gay neighborhoods uld dimish safe spac for LGBTQ+  perceived cle of gay neighborhoods has produced ncern and anxiety among the LGBTQ+ populatn about possible disregard for the origal acplishment of tablishg gayborhoods as safe and clive urban space for LGBTQ+ dividuals. The survival of smaller gay districts (and gay districts loted small- and mid-sized ci (Forstie 2008)) is more threatened than tablished gay districts larger metropolan areas wh cril mass LGBTQ+ muni (Ghaziani 2021) and some lotns have rmally memorated LGBTQ+ signifint plac wh or near gay neighborhoods, as shown Fig.

2021), most rearchers believe that the strs ed by sexual stigma and prejudice is the most signifint factor, and gay neighborhoods n help migate this strs across the lifpan, though younger generatns not directly participatg the stggle for LGBTQ+ civil rights may be unaware of the importance of muny that gay neighborhoods provi and support (Bterman and Hs 2021). Visual asssment evince neighborhoods around Toronto dite the emergence of enclav of LGBTQ+ people livg away om the tablished gay village (Bterman 2021), supportg siar observatns Atlanta where greater tegratn has shifted LGBTQ+ life to peripheral parts of the metropolan regn (Doan and Atalay 2021).

GAY PRI

Importantly, we note, a spatial diffn of LGBTQ+ culture away om gayborhoods do not suggt a plete or pendg mise of gay neighborhoods; stead, we argue that gay neighborhoods have arrived at a plate om which ntuo and dynamic re-spatializatns across metropolan space (Coff 2021) and the memorializatn of gay neighborhoods and plac wh them (Miller and Bterman 2021) may occur.

THE RISE AND FALL OF AMERIN GAYBORHOODS

While a simple lear mol n be ed to nceptualize the dissolutn of gayborhoods when society has eventually reached full acceptance of LGBTQ+ and segregatn is unneed and unwanted, we n more realistilly image much nuance—provid by the addn of plex centrifugal and centripetal forc that entice LGBTQ+ people and other populatn subgroups toward or away om gayborhoods—to the mol (Doan and Atalay 2021; Duberman 2018). From a posn on this plate, we pse to ntemplate the potential future trajectory of LGBTQ+ urban space, and we suggt that is unwise to fixate on the cle or ath of gay neighborhoods but to stead better unrstand and explore emergg ncentratns of LGBTQ+ rints new formatns across metropolan space, pecially other central cy neighborhoods that have not long been associated wh a LGBTQ+ prence but may acquire one.

Now, the physil buildg blocks of gay neighborhoods—mercial tablishments (bars, rtrants, bookstor), servic (muny centers, health clics), and rinc—may be removed or displaced due to var urban forc cludg neighborhood change, revalizatn, and gentrifitn and soc-cultural fluenc (tast, preferenc, and attus) and even equal rights legislatn (Bterman 2020; Eeckhout et al.

However, if gayborhoods (or elements of gayborhoods) are at risk or ed disappearg, then the need to prerve the memory spac be urgent to prerve the plac and document the memori of rints the neighborhoods and social actn that occurred there (Miller and Bterman 2021) pecially for future generatns (Bterman and Hs 2021). Gay neighborhoods posss a legacy and history that has meang beyond their current physil life; Coff (2021) explas that “non-climactic gayborhoods leave “afterglows, ” affects that ntue to exert geographic effects the prent and near future” (Coff 2021, 373) and “a gayborhood n have an afterlife even if s physil prence is lost” (Coff 2021, 381). 7 Concln: Rurgence and RenaissanceThroughout the 1990s and 2000s, tablished gay neighborhoods beme creasgly “ls gay, ” and more mastream, while many LGBTQ+ rints moved to other neighborhoods and muni (arguably makg the neighborhoods “more gay”), while the perceptn of gay neighborhoods as relevant and meangful began to acture.

WHAT IS A GAYBORHOOD?

As gay neighborhoods appear to “cle” through LGBTQ+ populatn loss (Sprg 2021) and other ways (Bterman 2020, Hs 2019), new gay districts arise procs of hoehold migratn and mographic shifts—spread across metropolan space— a pattern of succsn and replacement (Doan and Atalay 2021; Bterman 2021; Podmore 2021).

ONCE A CCIAL REFUGE, ‘GAYBORHOODS’ LOSE L.G.B.T.Q. RINTS MAJOR CI

Perhaps gay neighborhoods of a different or alternative sort may emerge as civil rights, regnn, and tolerance shifts across the Global South, evint untri like India and the  people migrate to new districts when they fd safe, clive, and nvenient accs to everyday servic and ameni—pecially LGBTQ-iendly bs and servic—and now, perhaps more so than before 1990, the prence of servic that support LGBTQ+ fai cludg schools, librari, childre centers, and fay healthre facili. Moreover, we anticipate that tablished gay neighborhoods will propagate via an “afterglow” (Coff 2021) as historilly relevant s bee landmarked or memorialized (Miller and Bterman 2021) neighborhoods have proven themselv rilient to the AIDS/HIV panmic, enomic change, populatn loss, mographic change, gentrifitn, and other forc. Given the evince offered by chapters this book and the thematic takeaway msag enumerated this chapter, we argue that we are not wns to the “ath” or even the unntrolled cle of gay neighborhoods; stead, we suggt that gay neighborhoods by 2020 have reached a state of matury and have ascend to a plate which a centralized LGBTQ+ populace may provi the talyst for new forms of muny engagement, activism, and relevance.

Gay Pri typilly volv a seri of events and is often pped by a para volvg marchers and lourful floats om the LGBTQ muny and s the Stonewall rts, LGBTQ dividuals had generally not broadst their sexual orientatn or inty, but the event galvanized the gay muny and sparked greater polil activism (see gay rights movement). Bat for The New York TimPublished July 3, 2022Updated July 4, 2022SAN FRANCISCO — Cleve Jon has lived the Castro neighborhood for nearly 50 years, almost om the day he graduated om high school Phoenix and hchhiked to has been a polil and cultural lear San Francis, anizg gay men and lbians when the AIDS epimic vastated the streets the early 1980s. He was a face of the anger and sorrow that swept the Castro 1978 after the assassatn of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to the Board of Jon has helped fe the Castro, dancg at s gay bars seven nights a week when he was younger, gatherg wh iends for drks and gossip as he grew olr.