Gentrification of a gay enclave

[XemaSab]

Even on a weekday in winter, the Castro district vibrates with energy, most of it male. Men holding hands, walking dogs and lounging at cafes have long been the main attraction in a neighborhood known as a gay mecca the world over.
Yet where visitors see a living monument to gay pride, longtime community leader Brian Basinger sees a cultural enclave at risk of becoming a faded museum piece - or worse, a place where gay men may one day feel like they don't belong.

"When I see a stroller now, I see it as someone who evicted a person with AIDS, right or wrong," said Basinger, president of the Harvey Milk Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transexual Democratic Club.

http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_5404942

[HappyWeasel]

1. gee that's too bad.

But wow....gentrification of gays? Isn't that oxymoronic? Gays are notorious for keeping neighboorhoods in good condition.

[NashVegas]

2. I Thought Gays Were Known

To gentrify blighted neighborhoods. It's afterwards, when it's safe because crime has gone down, respectable folks moves in.

[cboy4]

3. They're NOT talking about the gentrification of gays....they're

talking about the gentrification of this iconic gay neighborhood by straight people.

[Deja Q]

12. Not to pinpoint yours as many responses in this thread are the same,

but the level of stereotyping going on is utterly disgusting.

"Gays are this". "Gays are good at that". And so on.

[jannyk]

4. What absolute garbage. As someone who has lived

in or around the Castro for 25 years, may I point out that it was Gays that gentrified the area. So how can you 'gentrify' an area that's already been 'gentrified'?

Also, with the price of a one bed condo at $700k and rents that have always in the stratosphere, who exactly are these 'down and out' Gays there are beng displaced?

>>"When I see a stroller now, I see it as someone who evicted a person with AIDS, right or wrong," said Basinger,<<

Hey dipshit, many of those strollers are being pushed by my gay and lesbian friends!!

/typo

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Don't get too worked up.

These are little details that are bound to be missed by the new generation of "journalists", many of whom are just putting in their time, before they become pundits, columnists or best-selling authors.

Just ask them. ;-)

Some of us older guys, who might have trained to be, or were, journalists have another name for them, names like "hacks", "dumb kids", or the ever-popular "jerkoffs"(While descriptive in it's own way, is also a name for an activity far more productive, useful and pleasurable than them).

[EFerrari]

10. I don't think I get what's going on here.

I'm 'way out in the Sunset. We moved to this apartment because it was just under $1000 for a one bedroom. When the building went condo, I bought it because the alternatives were even more expensive. And, I didn't have the energy to fight the conversion at the time.

So, is the premise here that gays are against affordable housing? :crazy:

/just when you think

[DemBones DemBones]

14. . . .

"Hey dipshit, many of those strollers are being pushed by my gay and lesbian friends!!"

:rofl:

An inconvenient truth, I suppose, for the "dipshit" whose name I've already forgotten.

[jannyk]

6. Did you purposly miss this quote from the article?...

>>But as gays and lesbians win legal rights and greater social acceptance, community activists worry these so-called "gayborhoods" are losing their relevance. Like the bedsheet-sized rainbow flag rippling majestically at the intersection marking the entrance to the Castro, they are at a historical crossroads.
"What I've heard from some people is, `We don't need the Castro anymore because essentially San Francisco is our Castro,"' said Don Romesburg, who co-chairs the GLBT Historical Society.<<

Let's see....Gays say "we don't need the Castro anymore..."

Why, because the GLBT community has complete acceptance outside the 'high priced ghetto'? Odd that you should find this a negative, because I thought it was what the fight was all about. Be careful what you ask for - you might get it.

[Kingshakabobo]

24. That's a good point.

I've noticed that about San Fransisco. The gayborhood doesn't seem as concentrated as Chicago....The city just seems more 'open.' I've had a few friends move to San Fransisco and not be able to adjust to that difference. But then again, Chicago's gayborhood is spreading north to Uptown, Andersonville and further north from there. It's definitely become less concentrated in the last 10 years.

"Be careful what you ask for"....is right.

[Solo_in_MD]

7. Similar SFGate article, with a disturbing comment

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/25/MNG2DOATDK1.DTL

Similar discussion of the impact of families moving in etc, but this:

Heterosexuals "are welcome as long as they understand this is our community," said Adam Light, a leader in the Castro Coalition, a group formed eight months ago to address the shifts in the neighborhood in recent years.

I found disturbing...subsitute black for hetrosexual and see how it sounds.

[EFerrari]

8. The Chronicle is nutwing about local issues so take that with

a pillar of salt.

[Solo_in_MD]

9. In what way?

[EFerrari]

11. They always support the conservative local candidates and positions.

It's sort of strange. They will criticize Bush and also go out of their way to bash local progressives on the same page. :shrug:

[Deja Q]

13. Holy shit.

What's left to say? Apart from, "So much for hippie ideology that never was real in the first place".

[XemaSab]

15. That was EXACTLY my response

It's a fun article for mix and match: plug in 'redneck,' 'Italian,' 'grandmother,' 'Jew,' 'Mexican,' 'gay,' 'Yankee,' 'Chinaman,' 'Puerto Rican,' 'working class,' 'Black,' 'Irishman,' and any other ethnic/racial/cultural/sexual orientation modifier and this could be a right-wing hit piece from anywhere in the US anytime in the last three centuries. :P

"When I see a Yankee now, I see it as someone who evicted a redneck, right or wrong," :P

[Rowdy Church]

16. Same is Happening elsewhere

Its not just the Castro in SF - the same is happening to our inner city Gay enclaves in every major city across the nation -- including NYC. Traffic congestion, rising fuel costs and suburban sprawl continues to make inner city living more and more attractive to upwardly mobile professionals who now view these inner city neighborhoods as an alternative to living in the cookie cutter blandness of suburbia.

What's not been pointed out is that while many GLBT did purchase property in these areas decades ago - many of the neighborhoods traditionally offered reasonable rental property which made the inner city Gay enclave an affordable place to live for many young gays and lesbians who fled their homes in rural America in favor of the "safety in numbers" in the city. Now buying a home or even renting an apartment in these areas is well of reach, especially the youth who still vibrate to the city from rural America.

For many GLBT - these Gay enclaves are apart of our identity, we grew up knowing these were our *safe* havens. Here in Midtown Atlanta we have seen the same trend and while Midtown will always be, for me, our Gay corner of the city - many of my friends and so many of the young gay men and lesbians can no longer afford to live anywhere near the midtown district. As our neighborhoods become unfordable and the institutions that have been our icons for the last several decades are slowly one by one being swept aside its having a very chilling effect.

I believe we, the GLBT community at-large, need for these *safe havens* to retain their Gay Ghetto or Gay Enclave status -- and we won't let go easily.

[ComerPerro]

17. But don't you take satisfaction in the idea that

these yuppies, who take over gay areas after they have been "cleaned up" and made trendy by the GLBT community, have to pay sometimes as much as three, four, or five times what they would have if they had moved in when the GLBT community did?

[Rowdy Church]

20. I would If I had made some Real Estate Investments

... Which I did NOT. :(

[ComerPerro]

22. LOL, yeah, true.

But you see this kinda think alot, especially on the North side of Chicago, and it always strikes me as hilarious.

[newyawker99]

23. Hi Rowdy Church!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[GreenZoneLT]

18. There are plenty of new gay neighborhoods in Atlanta

Midtown/Ansley Park/Virginia Highland are only enclaves for RICH gays, and it's been that way for the past ten years at least. Worrying about Midtown getting straighter is just nostalgia.

East Atlanta is a growing, diverse, gay-friendly enclave now, when it was a crime-riddled, 99-percent black ghetto 20 years ago. Same thing is becoming true of the west side, along the former Stewart Avenue, and Oakhurst, East Point, etc., etc. Everything ITP is gay-safe now, pretty much. Decatur's so lesbianified that frat boys sniggeringly call it "Dick-hater."

Everybody bitches about the new people moving in; East Atlanta has had some real dustups between one or two self-appointed, homophobic African-American "community leaders" and the wealthier gay people who have been gentrifying the neighborhood.

I live in a tatty to niceish '50s subdivision up near PDK airport, and we're freakin' THRILLED to get gay folks moving in there, lemme tell you. I know it's stereotypical, but the two guys who moved in across the street are doing wonders with the curb appeal of their house.

[Rowdy Church]

19. No OTP for me

Actually I agree with your assessment - my comments were driven by nostalgia .. no doubt.

Ironically, what goes around comes around - as it were ... ten years ago an African-American minister in Kirkwood was making front page news by marching in the streets because the *homosexuals* were moving in .. his tact was homophobic but he was raising the same point I attempted earlier -- that as the neighborhood becomes gentrified it will also become less affordable for the current residents.

An ironic twist - that minister lives next door to one of my friends who bought into Kirkwood while it was still *affordable* -- this same minister has seen his own home's value nearly triple -- and I must say he knows we're all gay of course and has never uttered an unkind word to any of us nor has he ever been anything but cordial and a great next door neighbor to my friends.

I guess *we* may not *need* our gay ghettos as much as we used to ... considering that we've made great strides in the last several decades in terms of acceptance ... not that we don't have some work to do ... ahem marriage rights,ahem .. but thats another thread and I don't want to break into that discussion.

But I have no desire to ever live OTP ever again. Ask me again in another 10 years. :)

[GreenZoneLT]

21. Just wait, Roswell will probably be the next Grant Park.

Downtown Roswell and Marietta have a LOT of potential in terms of the architectural fabric, and the inner burbs are currently having their own white flight and are becoming low-income, rental, immigrant neighborhoods. The urban pioneers in 2030 will no doubt sneer at the yuppies who are afraid to go OTP because it's "too real."

:)

[Rowdy Church]

25. OTP = Bigotry 2 Me

Well, the other side of this coin is that OTP also represents a decidedly bigoted anti-gay image for me and many of my friends.

I grew up in rural Southern Georgia. Many charming southern towns have delightful architecture and Oh, what I wouldn't do to get my hands on one of those old homes that still has all its original fixtures and moldings. And yes that does include Norcross, Roswell, Alpharetta -- and I begrudgingly include Marietta and parts of Cobb Co.

Beyond our enclaves becoming unfordable -- the other point I was driving at in my original post and what I perceived as the original intent of the article -- our Gay enclaves served as *safe haven* from the bigoted burbs and small towns we escaped.

There is the fear that the reverse white flight will end up causing our traditionally gay enclave and ghetto to become as foreign to us as the 'burbs and small towns are now -- strictly speaking in political/social terms.

If downtown Marietta and hence Cobb County ceased being so viciously anti-Gay and once again accepts that the Earth does in fact rotate and circles the Sun ... then some of these properties might very well become attractive to me .. somehow I doubt 2030 is long enough for that to happen. LOL :>)