Study finds gay neighbourhoods ‘straightening’

[finehoe]

New research finds that traditionally gay neighbourhoods are becoming increasingly "straight" places, and could be at risk of losing their distinct cultural identity.

Fewer same-sex couples reside in historically gay neighbourhoods compared to 10 years ago, according to one of the largest studies of sexuality in the U.S. Led by University of British Columbia sociologist Amin Ghaziani, the study found the number of gay men who live in gay enclaves has declined eight per cent while the number of lesbians has dropped 13 per cent.

The study also identifies new demographic trends, including unexpected clusters of same-sex parents around desirable schools in traditionally straight neighbourhoods and the emergence of districts for LGBT people of colour. The findings also show that same-sex households exist in a record-high 93 per cent of U.S. counties.

http://news.ubc.ca/2014/07/28/goodbye-gayborhood-study-finds-gay-neighbourhoods-straightening/

[spuwho]

Which further symbolizes that people from the gay community are free to integrate into society more than ever. No one cares if a gay couple lives next them anymore than anyone else. Exactly how it should be.

[edjax]

I think this has existed actually for many years that gay couples could live anywhere they wanted pretty freely. I know there are always exceptions to the rule.

[simms3]

Bogus article in most cases.  Gay couples, especially those with younger kids, have every bit as much reason not to be in a noisy gayborhood with tons of bars/clubs as straight couples.  Gay singles have every bit if not more reason nowadays to be in a gayborhood, and the evidence is pointing to the contrary of this article in several cases that gayborhoods are back on the rise (I can point to Castro as one such example where new gay bars/clubs have opened up and circuit parties are on the rise, all while straights are also moving in, but straight SINGLES, because it's a nightlife hub).  Gay couples, especially those with kids, live with all of the other families in Noe.

[finehoe]

Gay couples, especially those with younger kids, have every bit as much reason not to be in a noisy gayborhood with tons of bars/clubs as straight couples. 

I agree that if the study actually focuses on couples, your observation is relevant.  But I haven't read it, only this article.  I can say that having recently visited both Dupont Circle in DC and Boystown in Chicago, it was evident in both locations that straight people are much more prevalent than in the past.

[For_F-L-O-R-I-D-A]

I think that some formerly "gay" neighborhoods are nicer and cleaner today than surrounding neighborhoods so they attract young urban adults who embrace gay rights, but are not gay. DuPont would be the perfect example. Likewise, because many gay couples are embracing monogamy and child rearing (which in the grand scheme of things is a very new phenomenon), it makes sense that they would seek a more family friendly environment, rather than the young party-centric neighborhoods.

[peestandingup]

Gay couples, especially those with younger kids, have every bit as much reason not to be in a noisy gayborhood with tons of bars/clubs as straight couples. 

I agree that if the study actually focuses on couples, your observation is relevant.  But I haven't read it, only this article.  I can say that having recently visited both Dupont Circle in DC and Boystown in Chicago, it was evident in both locations that straight people are much more prevalent than in the past.

Any large metro city that's on the rise in its urban centers aren't immune to the big business (and big money) moving into these hoods. Many single gays are urban pioneers in a sense, but like anything, once the secret's out then its out.

Dupont was certainly more gay/eclectic a few years ago than it is now, but in all honesty this isn't about gay or straight & has more to do with rich/middle class/poor. If you ask me, most the hoods in DC are turning into carbon copies of themselves & are starting to lose their identities. And I'm betting the same thing is happening to NYC, San Fran, etc.

The only hoods I saw during our extended stay in DC that didn't make me want to hang myself were around Capital Hill & Eastern Market. It was far different 7 or 8 years ago. It's jumped the shark IMHO.

[finehoe]

...but in all honesty this isn't about gay or straight & has more to do with rich/middle class/poor.

I think this is spot-on.  The truth of the matter is most younger people, gay or straight, can't afford Chelsea, Logan Circle or Lakeview, so they have to go elsewhere.

[finehoe]

Interview with Amin Ghaziani, author of There Goes The Gayborhood?

Matthew Yglesias: The title of your book comes from the idea that these traditional gay neighborhoods or dissipating or moving. Are gay men and lesbians leaving the Castro, leaving the Village?

Amin Ghaziani: First of all, I would like to emphasize that the title of the book has a question mark at the end. I think that the changes that we are witnessing in these neighborhoods are quite complex and that the story is not simple or that it can be summarized by singular factors.

My curiosities began while I was a graduate student living in Chicago's Boystown neighborhood from 1999 to 2008. I began to notice changes on the ground informally, and they became central preoccupations of my friends and me as we would try to figure out what's happening in the neighborhood. We noticed more straight couples holding hands on the streets, more baby strollers pushed by straight families. We also began to notice that some of the straight couples who were living in Boystown or walking through its streets would make faces — of disapproval, perhaps — when they would see a same sex couple holding hands. I would notice that a sex store would close and a nail salon would open in its place. These types of casual conversations provided the motivation for me to do this book once I had completed graduate school some years on.

I then looked at census data and other demographers have looked at census data, and there is widespread consensus that these areas are de-concentrating. In other words, when we compare the 2000 US Census to the 2010 US Census, we see that there are fewer male and female same sex partner households residing in gayborhoods than there were 10 years earlier. Now same sex partner households reside in 93% of all counties in the United States.

MY: Is it possible to get solid, quantitative information about sexual orientation of single people?

AG: No, this is a major limitation of the census data. When we look at the statics, we are necessarily underestimating the gay and lesbian population. The Census, for instance, excludes those who are not partnered. It also excludes those who do not live with their partner, those individuals who are not willing to self-identify as gay or lesbian, those who self-identify as bisexual and those self-identify as transgender.

MY: How much of gayborhood decline is driven by economic factors and gentrification, and how much by increasing social tolerance in the larger community?

AG: I think both factors are crucially important to understand why these areas are changing. My concern is that the national public conversation surrounding gay neighborhoods tends to over emphasize economic factors at the neglect of other important variables as well. I cannot quantify which matters more, but what I can say is that we should think more critically about the effects of acceptance and assimilation on the decisions that both gay and straight people make about where to live. And then how that, in turn, affects the character, composition and the complexion of existing gay neighborhoods.

MY: As traditional gayborhoods decline, do we see new ones arise?

AG: Yes, I began by wanting to understand why these neighborhoods were sexually integrating, but along the way I discovered that new areas are forming. In Chicago, for instance, the existing Boystown neighborhood may be straightening, but there's a new emergence of same sex partners households in Andersonville. There are also many gay men and lesbians who are moving to even the next neighborhood north, Rogers Park. I know there's a similar movement that's happening in Washington, DC,  San Francisco, and San Diego. Perhaps we live in an age of plurality and multiplication rather than disappearance.

MY: Growing acceptance is a good thing, but is there something that's lost culturally when certain kinds of large concentrations of gay and lesbian couples move away?

AG: The tremendous rates of acceptance of LGBTQ individuals that underlie the census statistics is extremely positive. That said, we also need to find meaningful ways of preserving these areas or promoting the building of new ones.

There is a lot that is lost both politically and culturally if these neighborhoods disappear in theory. The loss of clusters may, for example, have implications for the LGBTQ community in terms of exercising political or electoral influence. And bigotry and bias will persist even as we move toward an era of complete legislative equality. A lot of peopl say that it's only a matter of moments before same sex marriage is the law of the land. But even after that happens, we have no reason to believe that homophobia will die. You can simply ask yourself has racism gone away or has sexism gone away?The same holds true for homophobia.

There are cultural concerns for us to think about as well. Historically, we know that such areas of concentrated minorities groups have been crucibles to cultural innovation and they have inspired expressions from music to fashion, poetry and literature. You might think about the Harlem Renaissance as one example that's not related to gay neighborhoods. In a similar way, non-heterosexuals have used gayborhoods to build rich, diverse, dynamic communities, celebrate human sexuality, to inspire artistic expression such as Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City.

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5979467/there-goes-the-gayborhood-by-amin-ghaziani

[Tacachale]

It should be no surprise that these neighborhoods change with time, that's the fate of almost any neighborhood. I think the real question is one Ghaziani just touches on in that interview: will new enclaves continue to form as the old ones change? I suspect we may see fewer of the major, big-city "gayborhoods" emerge as we see more "gay-friendlyborhoods" develop all around the country.

[carpnter]

These gay neighborhoods were most likely straight many years ago.  There was nothing wrong with the neighborhood becoming "gay" and there is nothing wrong with it becoming straight again, so there is no reason to be worried about a neighborhood losing its "distinct" cultural identity.

[cellmaker]

I'd have to disagree that the mainstreaming of gay people, and the consequent straightening of what used to be "gay ghettos", is not a loss.  Every other neighborhood is, pretty much by definition, straight, so when gay neighborhoods disappear, something real has been extinguished.  (This is not to say that gay people don't mind sharing, but there is a distinct identity and vibe in heavily gay neighborhoods which is different from other neighborhoods.  Italians and Poles could probably point to the same sort of phenomenon.)

Anyway, these are the wages of success, as it were.  I live in Logan Circle (DC), moving there there in the mid/late 90s when it was pretty scary, with a heavy gay "pioneer" presence.  Fast forward 10+ years and those pioneers made it safe for the straight people to follow.  The last real gay bar closed about four years ago (RIP, Playbill), and while there are still plenty of gay people in the neighborhood, they hold little cultural sway.  It feels more and more like a hip Georgetown now, which is sort of tragic. 

(Flame away, folks.)

[simms3]

The study is seriously flawed, though, in that only gay couples are tracked, not gay singles.  Speaking for SF, but I know that LA, Chicago, and NYC are similar in this regard, married couples and serious partners don't hang around the loudest, craziest, gayborhoods.  They are adopting/surrogate, looking for space, and looking to settle down and focus on career and family.

For every super duper gayborhood in these larger cities, I can name an equivalent where the gay couples actually live, and hint, it's where lots of straight couples live, as well.  Noe Valley here in SF comes to mind.  It's known as a hip family oriented neighborhood on both a BART and a Muni line, with a Whole Foods, a commercial spine, and actual single family houses that until recently could be had for a slight discount to other pricier neighborhoods to the north.

I can see where some cities didn't have such an entrenched population that their gayborhood was always kind of small, but in a hip spot, and now it's fully gentrified and desirable by all folks.  But there are definitely a few cities in America with a HUGELY entrenched gay population that's too unwieldy to quickly force out our disperse (SF, NYC, LA, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, and Seattle come to mind despite the author mentioning Seattle).

Also, I can tell that there are tons of non gay posters piping in.  Polish neighborhoods served a clear purpose.  As did Greek, Italian, Irish, and French neighborhoods.  There isn't serious immigration from any of these countries and kids/grandkids/grand grand grandkids are all well past the generation of being raised in a ethnic home under a different language.  They are free to go out and fuck whoever they want, wherever they want, and they are likely to speak the same tongue.

Gays can't just go out and fuck whoever they want.  They only make up 10-15% of the population in even the gayest of major cities, and certainly a lot less in most cities.  So it makes sense for them to congregate and have bars "for themselves".  It's not being selfish, it's just that being gay is a little different than being Irish or Italian (whereas before, similar to gays kinda forced biological situation, Italians wouldn't dare fuck Irish and vice versa, on principle, now that's no longer the case and people just screw and marry whoever they're attracted to).  There are some limiting factors not being mentioned here.  If you're gay, your chances of finding a mate in a "mixed" or mostly straight bar (or any bar with the actual ratio of gay:straight in reality) is slim to none.

It's hard enough for most straight people to hit a homerun every night, let alone find someone to actually be with, and straights are 90-95% of the population!!  So give gays a break if they want their hood and their bars.  They want all that for the same reason every other person wants cool neighborhoods with their "type" and bars.

[finehoe]

The study is seriously flawed, though, in that only gay couples are tracked, not gay singles.  Speaking for SF, but I know that LA, Chicago, and NYC are similar in this regard, married couples and serious partners don't hang around the loudest, craziest, gayborhoods.  They are adopting/surrogate, looking for space, and looking to settle down and focus on career and family.

The study didn't find that the number of couples in a particular neighborhood went down, while the number of singles went up, which is the scenario you are describing.  It found that the number of gay couples went down.  Same-sex cohabiting romantic couples are obviously a serious undercount of the overall LGBT population, but they work as a rough proxy. Ghaziani's research found that between the 2000 and 2010 Census, the number of same-sex couples living in key traditional gayborhoods declined, often as larger trends in urban life made those neighborhoods newly desirable destinations.  It didn't find that the total number of cohabiting couples declined.

[simms3]

Re-read just the section of quote you re-posted.  The study is flawed because it can't track gay SINGLES, only gaycouples.  I read this article elsewhere and joined a discussion of it before I read it here on MJ.  No reading miscomprehension here

I was never talking about couples/singles in general, but gay couples/gay singles.

Here's a blurb from Time's article on his book, quoting a Trulia study:

Neighborhoods where same-sex male couples account for more than 1% of all households (that's three times the national average) had price increases, on average, of 13.8%. In neighborhoods where same-sex female couples account for more than 1% of all households, prices increased by 16.5% – more than one-and-a-half times the national increase.

http://time.com/money/3080090/gayborhoods-gay-neighborhood-housing-prices/

Note that because couples are tracked, we're down at the 1% figure.  I guarantee you this country's most well known gayborhoods are 25-40% gay, if not higher.  Mostly singles, or guys who aren't reporting that they are a couple, largely because the US hasn't recognized gay couples.

Again, gay SINGLES are not tracked.  My point is that once you are couple status, you are doing things couples do.  Like having kids or settling down.  Of course you're going to go where the good schools are, where housing prices might be a tad cheaper, and where it's less hectic and crazy.  Doesn't matter if you're gay or straight in that regard.  The difference, and perhaps a central theme of  the article, is that before that was difficult as gay couples weren't necessarily accepted by their neighbors/society, and now they are.  But gay singles still want to be around other gay singles.  You can believe that!!

The article does point out that the number of straight couples has increased in traditional gayborhoods, but if the neighborhood itself grows, that could include room for growth from both straight couples and single gay men/women.  Finally, the study also seems flawed in its treatment of gayborhoods that are lesbian-centric.  I don't think that the author even considers Bernal Heights a gayborhood in SF, but it is the traditional lesbian neighborhood.  There are dyke bars and dyke services.  And many if not most lesbians are couples, so there are lots of straight couples there, as well, in for cheaper housing and decent public schools.