Why Gayborhoods Matter: The Street Empirics of Urban Sexualities

Abstract

Urbanists have developed an extensive set of propositions about why gay neighborhoods form, how they change, shifts in their significance, and their spatial expressions. Existing research in this emerging field of “gayborhood studies” emphasizes macro-structural explanatory variables, including the economy (e.g., land values, urban governance, growth machine politics, affordability, and gentrification), culture (e.g., public opinions, societal acceptance, and assimilation), and technology (e.g., geo-coded mobile apps, online dating services). In this chapter, I use the residential logics of queer people—why they in their own words say that they live in a gay district—to show how gayborhoods acquire their significance on the streets. By shifting the analytic gaze from abstract concepts to interactions and embodied perceptions on the ground—a “street empirics” as I call it—I challenge the claim that gayborhoods as an urban form are outmoded or obsolete. More generally, my findings caution against adopting an exclusively supra-individual approach in urban studies. The reasons that residents provide for why their neighborhoods appeal to them showcase the analytic power of the streets for understanding what places mean and why they matter.

Who Are the People in Your Gayborhood? Understanding Population Change and Cultural Shifts in LGBTQ+ Neighborhoods

“…1.2). As LGBTQ+ neighborhoods began to mature in the 1980s and 1990s, gay villages served a central role in delivering health-supportive servicesincluding HIV prevention and clinics, doctor's offices, counseling services-related to the AIDS pandemic (Ghaziani 2021) as well as mental health resources (Weinke et al 2021) and social services for displaced and homeless LGBTQ+ youth shunned or ostracized by families. Later, in the 2000s, these same communities became the organizing centers for supporting same-sex marriage and equality.…”

“…As understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ+ people continued to grow, LGBTQ+ neighborhoods often became home to the popular culture vanguard that welcomed, in addition to LGBTQ+ individuals, straight mainstream visitors, bohemian artists, and the cultural avant garde. Gay villages cultivated a reputation for restaurants, music scenes, boutiques, and hipster culture (Podmore 2021), thanks to LGBTQ+ pioneers who moved in and settled these places and attracted the pink economy to form around them (Ghaziani 2021). Bars, nightlife, parties, and pride parades became further attractors to gay neighborhoods (see Fig.…”

“…Clustering in certain neighborhoods, LGBTQ+ people have raised their visibility and have formed (largely liberal or progressive) voting blocs that help achieve political and social gains. In addition to political functions of voting and elections, Ghaziani (2021) identifies other reasons that gay neighborhoods matter, including providing space to build community and nurture relationships, promoting the pink economy, and supporting political action and activism (Bitterman and Hess 2016b). Most LGBTQ+ neighborhoods develop formal and informal support services to improve life quality for all.…”

“…Most LGBTQ+ neighborhoods develop formal and informal support services to improve life quality for all. Without gayborhoods, LGBTQ+ people risk becoming marginalized and under threat of possibly losing rights and liberties they have fought to win (Ghaziani 2021). Over time, the importance of gay neighborhoods solidified as they became the nexus of-at first-the struggle for LGBTQ+ civil rights.…”

“…This important endeavor was intended to affirm the critical importance and relevance of these sites for generations to come (Bitterman and Hess 2021). The survival of smaller gay districts (and gay districts located in small-and mid-sized cities (Forstie 2008)) is more threatened than established gay districts in larger metropolitan areas with critical mass in LGBTQ+ communities (Ghaziani 2021) and some locations have informally commemorated LGBTQ+ significant places within or near gay neighborhoods, as shown in Fig. 1.8.…”