[LINK] "Don't knock the new village people"

[rfmcdonald]

As I sit here in the Lettiere coffee shop on the southeastern corner of Church and Wellesley, I find myself mostly agreeing with this Globe and Mail editorial comment.

Last month, a popular gay hangout called Zelda's packed up and moved to Yonge Street. Rents and housing prices are shooting up along Church Street. The young "post-gay" gays of today don't identify with the ghetto, as a place or as a concept. They're hanging out in non-explicitly-gay parts of town. The ghetto is now populated by aging pre-post-gay gays who shop at Cumbrae's and are on a first-name basis with the clerks at Vintages.

The result, predictably, is hand-wringing and lamentation. Deservedly so, perhaps. Church and Wellesley's greatest, gayest days may now be behind it. But there's a bigger question: How should all that hand-wringing be channelled?

At this point, it helps to take another look at Little Italy. For whatever reason, the College Street strip earned its official name during its Italian phase, even though the Italians were preceded by Jews and followed by the Portuguese, a smattering of Chinese and, eventually, Yuppies Of No Discernible Ethnicity or Sexual Orientation (YONDESOs).

That wasn't the mistake - neighbourhoods need names, after all. The mistake Little Italy made was trying to cling to its Italian-ness. That's what led to places like Tilt, Butt'r, Touché, and Veni Vidi Vici. Across town, the same thinking resulted in a neighbourhood called Greektown that specializes in below-average Greek food. And it could soon be true of Chinatown - the real Asian action, everyone knows, has long since moved to Markham.

What's the lesson for Church and Wellesley? By all means, lament. Curse and shake your fist at the heavens. But let your neighbourhood develop organically.