Planning and LGBTQ Communities

The Need for Inclusive Queer Spaces

Petra L. Doan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138798151
• eBook ISBN: 9781317631026
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

Although the last decade has seen steady progress towards wider acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, LGBTQ residential and commercial areas have come under increasing pressure from gentrification and redevelopment initiatives. As a result many of these neighborhoods are losing their special character as safe havens for sexual and gender minorities. Urban planners and municipal officials have sometimes ignored the transformation of these neighborhoods and at other times been complicit in these changes.

Planning and LGBTQ Communities brings together experienced planners, administrators, and researchers in the fields of planning and geography to reflect on the evolution of urban neighborhoods in which LGBTQ populations live, work, and play. The authors examine a variety of LGBTQ residential and commercial areas to highlight policy and planning links to the development of these neighborhoods. Each chapter explores a particular urban context and asks how the field of planning has enabled, facilitated, and/or neglected the specialized and diverse needs of the LGBTQ population.

A central theme of this book is that urban planners need to think "beyond queer space" because LGBTQ populations are more diverse and dispersed than the white gay male populations that created many of the most visible gayborhoods. The authors provide practical guidance for cities and citizens seeking to strengthen neighborhoods that have an explicit LGBTQ focus as well as other areas that are LGBTQ-friendly. They also encourage broader awareness of the needs of this marginalized population and the need to establish more formal linkages between municipal government and a range of LGBTQ groups. Planning and LGBTQ Communities also adds useful material for graduate level courses in planning theory, urban and regional theory, planning for multicultural cities, urban geography, and geographies of gender and sexuality.

1 WHY PLAN FOR THE LGBTQ COMMUNITY?

DOI: 10.4324/9781315756721-1

Petra L. Doan

By the second decade of the 21st century the presence of gays and lesbians in urban areas is widely acknowledged, mostly tolerated, but still rarely considered in public planning processes. Although academic articles on sexuality and urban spaces within the field of geography are quite numerous, in the field of planning lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) issues are frequently ignored both within the academy and in practice (Forsyth and Cheung 2001). It is difficult to determine whether this resistance is the result of explicit discrimination, a heterosexist bias (Frisch 2002) or simple avoidance by planning officials of politically risky topics. Doan (2011) examines the reluctance of the planning profession to include LGBTQ people as a community of interest and found that within the US planning profession some individuals remained deeply antagonistic towards LGBTQ individuals and felt that planning had no business “pandering” to such people. In addition, Forsyth (2011) illustrates the variety of ways that planning policies shape the lives and recreation possibilities of the LGBTQ community through the creation of LGBTQ enclaves, the provision of LGBTQ social services, the enactment of residential zoning and housing restrictions, and the preservation (or failure to preserve) of LGBTQ cultural areas. With these few exceptions, the planning literature has remained remarkably silent on the question of queer spaces.

Some of the resistance from planning staff may be linked to planners’ reluctance to engage with the LGBTQ population because the non-normative nature of this community is stereotypically linked to the topic of sex and the city that many municipalities would rather cleanse or purify (Hubbard 2000 and 2004). For example, in Sydney, Australia there were explicit attempts to regulate LGBTQ establishments using sex-related zoning measures (Prior 2008; Prior and Crofts 2011). Planning regulations in Atlanta are also being used to encourage the redevelopment of LGBTQ areas and exclude “adult businesses,” some of which include LGBTQ oriented shops and enterprises (Doan 2014). Forsyth (2011) suggests that popular misconceptions about the relative affluence of white gay men may exacerbate the reluctance of many planners to consider this sub-group in planning processes. However, the LGBTQ population as a whole is much more diverse and less wealthy than popularly imagined (Klawitter and Flatt 1998; Badgett, 2001; Carpenter 2004). Significant portions of the LGBTQ community remain marginalized both socially and economically, and as a result should not be ignored or neglected.

Whatever the cause of the less than stellar planning record vis-à-vis LGBTQ neighborhoods to date, the intention of this book is to provide concrete, relevant and directly-applicable planning and policy perspectives for how planners can improve the lives of LGBTQ individuals, whether they reside in “queer spaces” or not. Given that many gay neighborhoods are struggling and/or declining due to neglect of the specific needs of this multi-faceted population, this book argues that urban planners need to think “beyond queer space”—namely, to move beyond just tolerating LGBTQ individuals, couples, and families by proactively working to address their specific needs for places in which they can live, work and recreate. Building on the findings offered in Queerying Planning (Doan 2011) about the need to recognize and protect LGBTQ people, this volume takes the next step by bringing together leading urban planning and geography faculty as well as practitioners to reflect on the kinds of planning interventions required to preserve gay neighborhoods and meet the needs of a wider segment of the LGBTQ population.

While there have been a number of publications within the field of geography to explore theoretical issues of sexuality and space, this book provides a unique planning perspective, using place-specific examples in the United States as well as Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Specifically, it considers what kinds of urban and neighborhood development policies have been in place to date as well as the (frequently) negative impacts of these policies for LGBTQ populations. Many of the chapters examine a particular urban context, arguing how planners and policy-makers may have enabled, facilitated and allowed detrimental changes for queer spaces to happen due to neglect of the particular needs of LGBTQ people by planners and policy-makers in terms of affordable housing, accessible social services, safety from discrimination and violence. In addition, several chapters also illustrate the ways that community groups have mobilized to pressure the planning profession to take LGBTQ needs into consideration.

In highlighting the continuing necessity for safe LGBTQ neighborhoods, this book argues that it is necessary to move beyond a narrow fixation with queer space, and consider the actual needs of the various individuals who comprise the “queer” population. The aim of the volume is to provide practical guidance for city planners and officials seeking to strengthen diverse neighborhoods that are not only inclusive of LGBTQ people from the “gayborhoods,” but to encourage broader awareness of this marginalized population by policy-makers and planners. To this end, after reviewing historical developments—and the frequent demise of—specific LGBTQ spaces to date, this introduction offers an analysis of their decline before raising important questions needing consideration by planners and policy-makers in planning for the LGBTQ community beyond queer space. Whether they live in “gay space” or in the wider community, the specific concerns of LGBTQ people found in queer neighborhoods (and beyond) must be both acknowledged and addressed.

Changes to LGBTQ Neighborhoods

One of the most visible aspects of the LGBTQ community in urban areas has been the rise of concentrations of gay and lesbian residential and commercial areas that have for the most part been under the radar of planning authorities. Although Podmore (2013) suggests that the gay village has been the “most persistent object of study on sexuality in the city” (p. 3), these studies have been mostly conducted by other social scientists (geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians), not by urban planners. Historical studies of LGBTQ spaces indicate that establishments that welcomed gays and lesbians (bars, restaurants, other public areas) have long existed, but patterns of usage shifted over time in response to various socio-cultural forces linked to overt discrimination and police crackdowns. In the North American context LGBTQ historians (Faderman 1991; Kennedy and Davis 1993; Chauncey 1994; Stryker and Van Buskirk 1996; Stein 2000) have clearly shown that throughout the 20th century gays and lesbians were economically active in many cities, patronizing bars and restaurants, flocking to tourist venues (Newton 1993), as well as appropriating liminal public spaces such as public parks, public toilets, piers, and other areas at the fringes of “proper” society.

The latter half of the 20th century saw a higher level of organization among LGBTQ individuals (D’Emilio 1983). The riots at the Compton Cafeteria in San Francisco (Stryker 2008) and the Stonewall Inn in New York City in the late 1960s sparked a more activist liberation movement which enabled the emergence of distinctly visible clusters of residences and businesses catering to the LGBTQ population. These discrete neighborhoods were immensely attractive to young queer-identified individuals seeking to establish their non-normative identities and create an alternative and fully accepting community. The names used to describe these spaces included: gay village, gayborhood, boys’ town, lesbiville, and more recently queer space (Betsky 1997; Ingram et al. 1997; Rothenburg 1995). In some cities such LGBTQ neighborhoods were recognized by municipal authorities,¹ but in many others they have been largely ignored.

These welcoming urban environments provided a space of relative freedom and experimentation for some, but not all, members of the LGBTQ population. A number of critical articles and books have carefully described the problematic and contested nature of these queer spaces (Bell and Valentine 1995; Valentine 2000; Browne et al. 2007). For instance, the typical gay male neighborhood was often quite exclusive and not very hospitable to lesbians and bisexuals (Hemmings 2002), and lesbian neighborhoods did not always welcome transgendered people (Namaste 2000; Doan 2007). In addition, most of these queer spaces were narrowly defined by class and race (Nast 2002; Oswin 2008), leaving out LGBTQ individuals with lower incomes as well as those who identified as people of color (Nero 2005; Manalansan 2005). Walcott (2007) suggests that while gay male spaces do allow a co-mingling of the races, queers of color are often “caught between Eurocentric queer histories and homophobic communities that seek to deny their presence” (Walcott 2007, p. 237). The exclusionary nature of these spaces was especially true for rapidly re-developing residential zones in major metropolitan areas where a steady increase in property values caused higher rents, making it nearly impossible for younger and less affluent LGBTQ individuals to find affordable housing.

In the latter stages of the twentieth and early twenty-first century, many established LGBTQ neighborhoods were subject to considerable gentrification pressures causing significant changes to their LGBTQ nature, leading some to question whether this “de-gaying” would cause the demise of queer space (Ruting 2008; Doan and Higgins 2011). Collins (2004) has suggested that these changes might be part of a more generalizable model for queer spaces. He uses evidence from Soho in London to suggest that gay village development likely follows a regular socio-economic process in which an urban area in decline is selected as a location for one or more pioneer gay clubs. Over time these businesses begin attracting customers who make residential decisions to live in the area, encouraging additional clustering of gay-related businesses. Subsequently, as these businesses become profitable, the area experiences increasing concentrations of other LGBTQ oriented businesses. Finally Collins’ model suggests that as LGBTQ residents make aesthetic improvements, property values begin to increase. At the same time the neighborhood’s reputation as a tolerant and exciting space makes it more attractive and socially desirable to the wider population. This shift in demand results in the assimilation and integration of the LGBTQ neighborhood into the heterosexual mainstream and a change in its basic queerness.

Others have argued that such linear evolutionary models have limited value. Ruting (2008) argues that when gay districts are in a state of flux such as the degaying of the Oxford Street neighborhood in Sydney, Australia, LGBTQ people are not seamlessly integrated with heterosexual couples and families. Rather than integration, such neighborhoods often lose their queer flavor as gay men and other queer residents move elsewhere for a variety of reasons. Reinforcing this point, Gorman-Murray and Waitt (2009) also suggest that gay-friendly neighborhoods are developing outside of the traditional gayborhood in Sydney. While proximity enables more diverse social networks to develop between straight residents and their LGBTQ neighbors, these connections are strongest for those gays who aspire to middle class values.

The Collins hypothesis that the gayness of neighborhoods just happens ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Why Plan for the LGBTQ Community?
• Part I Planning and LGBTQ Populations in Traditional Gay Neighborhoods
• Part II Planning and LGBTQ Populations Outside the Gay Village
• Part III Expanding Planning Horizons: Recognizing LGBTQ Intersectionality
• Part IV Linking Planning and LGBTQ Activist Groups to Ensure Service Delivery
• Part V Conclusions
• Index