In my hometown of STL, I think The Grove neighborhood is illustrative of the complicated relationship between queer oppression and gentrification.
The Grove originally wasn't even called that, it was just known as that one part of town where the gay bars were. You didn't go there, because those bars were seedy and questionable. They were there because it was already a downtrodden part of town, one of those previously vibrant neighborhoods devastated by highway construction; and so there was no one to really *stop* the gays from moving in. Moreover, most of the city likely preferred they be sequestered in their own little neighborhood anyways, so that they wouldn't "bother" anyone except for the other disfavored minorities who were already there.
And of course, as always happens in these sorts of places, it became a vibrant source of local culture. Nightclubs and artsy-fartsy folks attracted restaurants, restaurants attracted businesses and residents, and those attracted big new apartment buildings. It gentrified slowly at first, and then all at once -- one day, you just turned around and they were marketing "The Grove" as a go-to night spot, not even really all that gay anymore, complete with dozens of ethnic restaurants and even a brewery.
This makes me wonder to what extent this queer YIMBYism simply derives from the recent queer experience seeing the effects of successful urbanism through gentrification. *Despite* the negative impacts, if you watch your neighborhood explode into a prosperous enclave, it's hard not to want to expand and improve on that process, *including* trying to minimize the negatives.
Yes, that's an interesting observation and one I thought about while writing this, but need to think about some more. My throwaway parenthetical about the NYC gayborhood moving from the West Village to Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen is an example of the phenomenon you're talking about. Thanks for sharing!
I think part of it is that the gay neighborhoods in major American cities - Castro, South End, Logan Circle, West Village (etc.), West Hollywood have become some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. Gay people still flock to them, and now other people do too, and the demand to live in them has clearly outpaced the supply of housing. Most of those neighborhoods don’t have many more units of housing than they did back when they were downtrodden and undesirable — mostly due to zoning restrictions and historical preservation laws. But demand has skyrocketed. These neighborhoods are no longer a refuge for gay people when a 1 bedroom starts at $3k per month.
Single family homes are built with the assumption that family means a nuclear family. Family often means something different for queer people. It certainly does for me. Different family structures have different housing needs which are often illegal to build in single family zones.
In my hometown of STL, I think The Grove neighborhood is illustrative of the complicated relationship between queer oppression and gentrification.
The Grove originally wasn't even called that, it was just known as that one part of town where the gay bars were. You didn't go there, because those bars were seedy and questionable. They were there because it was already a downtrodden part of town, one of those previously vibrant neighborhoods devastated by highway construction; and so there was no one to really *stop* the gays from moving in. Moreover, most of the city likely preferred they be sequestered in their own little neighborhood anyways, so that they wouldn't "bother" anyone except for the other disfavored minorities who were already there.
And of course, as always happens in these sorts of places, it became a vibrant source of local culture. Nightclubs and artsy-fartsy folks attracted restaurants, restaurants attracted businesses and residents, and those attracted big new apartment buildings. It gentrified slowly at first, and then all at once -- one day, you just turned around and they were marketing "The Grove" as a go-to night spot, not even really all that gay anymore, complete with dozens of ethnic restaurants and even a brewery.
This makes me wonder to what extent this queer YIMBYism simply derives from the recent queer experience seeing the effects of successful urbanism through gentrification. *Despite* the negative impacts, if you watch your neighborhood explode into a prosperous enclave, it's hard not to want to expand and improve on that process, *including* trying to minimize the negatives.
Yes, that's an interesting observation and one I thought about while writing this, but need to think about some more. My throwaway parenthetical about the NYC gayborhood moving from the West Village to Chelsea to Hell's Kitchen is an example of the phenomenon you're talking about. Thanks for sharing!
AI could never generate such quality memes
But it does generate my cover images! ;-)
I think part of it is that the gay neighborhoods in major American cities - Castro, South End, Logan Circle, West Village (etc.), West Hollywood have become some of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country. Gay people still flock to them, and now other people do too, and the demand to live in them has clearly outpaced the supply of housing. Most of those neighborhoods don’t have many more units of housing than they did back when they were downtrodden and undesirable — mostly due to zoning restrictions and historical preservation laws. But demand has skyrocketed. These neighborhoods are no longer a refuge for gay people when a 1 bedroom starts at $3k per month.
I need more essays that say “bitch, please” in the middle of them. Also, I didn’t know this was a thing so this was fun to read!
Ha! Gotta bring the sass sometimes! 🕺And thanks! ☺️
Single family homes are built with the assumption that family means a nuclear family. Family often means something different for queer people. It certainly does for me. Different family structures have different housing needs which are often illegal to build in single family zones.
100%. They might be better called "single-type-of-family" zones.