[URBAN NOTE] "Why Gayborhoods Matter"

[rfmcdonald]

Writing at The Atlantic Cities, urbanist Richard Florida makes an argument for the continued importance of GLBT-heavy neighbours in the United States (and by extension elsewhere, like Toronto's Church and Wellesley) for cities.

Economists have long speculated about the effects of gayborhoods on everything from diversity to gentrification to housing prices. One common theme of this analysis is that neighborhoods with a higher than average density of gay residents are by definition more diverse and open-minded, with a wider range of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups as well. Another common argument is that gays often pioneer the revitalization of disadvantaged, crime-filled urban neighborhoods – and their presence can be seen as an early marker of gentrification and a precursor to a jump in housing prices.

[. . .]

New research from the University of Pennsylvania’s Janice F. Madden and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Matt Ruther attempts to sort out the difficult questions of whether, where, and why gayborhoods form. The research, presented at the American Economic Association’s annual summit in January, uses data from the 2000 and 2010 Census and the 2005-9 American Community Survey to look at census-tract level concentrations of same-sex couples within 38 large central cities of 35 metropolitan areas across the U.S. (Though this data is clearly just a portion of the country’s gay and lesbian population, it’s the best proxy we have right now).

[. . .]

Gay men and lesbians tend to gravitate to different neighborhoods, according to the study. Gay men also cluster more substantially than lesbians, according to the study. This is especially the case out West, particularly in greater San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle. Lesbian couples were far less clustered than their gay male counterparts in both 2000 and 2010, and their level of separation from the rest of the population declined over the course of the decade.

Contrary to popular perception, there was little evidence that gay or lesbian households were more likely to live close to downtown. Gay men, however, were more likely to live in neighborhood tracts with older, historic housing stock.

The study also found little evidence that gay couples gravitate toward areas with large existing LGBT populations. Moreover, there was little evidence that gay and lesbian neighborhoods are more diverse than other neighborhood on racial or ethnic lines.

[. . .]

The results of the study do point to a connection between gay neighborhoods and some of the markers of gentrification. Across the board, the researchers found neighborhoods that began the decade with larger concentrations of gay men saw greater income growth, and, especially in the Northeast, greater population growth as well. This last finding, perhaps one of the most significant in light of current debates about gentrification, largely backs up research done a decade ago by UCLA’s Gary Gates. (However, several of the study’s other conclusions, including the finding that gay couples were no less likely to live in racially or ethnically diverse neighborhoods, contrast Gates’s research from the 2000 Census).