Community activists worry that "gayborhoods" are losing their relevance as gays win legal rights and greater social acceptance.
"Thirty years ago, if I lived in the Midwest and I was gay, my thought was I would go to San Francisco or New York," says Gary Gates, a demographer for the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA that specializes in sexual orientation and the law. "Now, a person can go to Kansas City and find a fairly active and open gay community."
In fact, from 2000 to 2005, the 10 states with the biggest increases in the percentage of gay couples were all in the Midwest, Gates said. Sandy Sachs, a nightclub owner in gay-friendly West Hollywood, has started promoting special dance nights for straight Iranians, Israelis and Russians because her gay clientele has fallen off. Sachs said that many gay men and lesbians now prefer to meet potential partners on the Internet.
Another factor contributing to the decline of gay neighborhoods: Many young gays feel comfortable mixing with people of different genders and sexual orientations. "We don't want to ostracize ourselves," said Matty, 20, who moved to San Francisco's diverse Mission District from nearby Petaluma three years ago. Activists agree it is a good thing that gay people no longer feel confined to the Castro, but some fear younger generations will overlook their history. "We have Chinatown and Japantown and so forth, and that's important for minority communities in this country, to have a place where they can get a sense of being the majority," said Joe Curtin, an architect who serves as president of Castro Area Planning Action. "But if you took those away, you would still have China and Japan. If the Castro goes away as a gay neighborhood, there is nowhere else. "
"Thirty years ago, if I lived in the Midwest and I was gay, my thought was I would go to San Francisco or New York," says Gary Gates, a demographer for the Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA that specializes in sexual orientation and the law. "Now, a person can go to Kansas City and find a fairly active and open gay community."
In fact, from 2000 to 2005, the 10 states with the biggest increases in the percentage of gay couples were all in the Midwest, Gates said. Sandy Sachs, a nightclub owner in gay-friendly West Hollywood, has started promoting special dance nights for straight Iranians, Israelis and Russians because her gay clientele has fallen off. Sachs said that many gay men and lesbians now prefer to meet potential partners on the Internet.
Another factor contributing to the decline of gay neighborhoods: Many young gays feel comfortable mixing with people of different genders and sexual orientations. "We don't want to ostracize ourselves," said Matty, 20, who moved to San Francisco's diverse Mission District from nearby Petaluma three years ago. Activists agree it is a good thing that gay people no longer feel confined to the Castro, but some fear younger generations will overlook their history. "We have Chinatown and Japantown and so forth, and that's important for minority communities in this country, to have a place where they can get a sense of being the majority," said Joe Curtin, an architect who serves as president of Castro Area Planning Action. "But if you took those away, you would still have China and Japan. If the Castro goes away as a gay neighborhood, there is nowhere else. "
With ever rising real estate prices, maybe it is time for gay men to find other "gayborhoods" away from the main urban core. Older suburbs have many of the same features of larger downtown clusters. Maybe opening a bar in a community where there is cheap housing and access to jobs in the urban area, may be the new gay frontier. This exodus may already be happening. With a conservative figure of around 300,000 unmarried cohabitating male households and growing, this may well be the trend. Just think of the all male eye-candy landscaping the front lawns of suburbia as hunky guys tend to mowing and working in their yards. WOOF.
Posts
