The Urban Book Series Alex Bitterman Daniel Baldwin Hess Editors The Life and Afterlife of Gay Neighborhoods Renaissance and Resurgence The Urban Book Series Editorial Board Fatemeh Farnaz Arefian, University of Newcastle, Singapore, Singapore; Silk Cities & Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, London, UK Michael Batty, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL, London, UK Simin Davoudi, Planning & Landscape Department GURU, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK Geoffrey DeVerteuil, School of Planning and Geography, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK Andrew Kirby, New College, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA Karl Kropf, Department of Planning, Headington Campus, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK Karen Lucas, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Marco Maretto, DICATeA, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Parma, Parma, Italy Fabian Neuhaus, Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Steffen Nijhuis, Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands Vitor Manuel Aráujo de Oliveira , Porto University, Porto, Portugal Christopher Silver, College of Design, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA Giuseppe Strappa, Facoltà di Architettura, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Roma, Italy Igor Vojnovic, Department of Geography, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Jeremy W. 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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14773 Alex Bitterman · Daniel Baldwin Hess Editors The Life and Afterlife of Gay Neighborhoods Renaissance and Resurgence Editors Alex Bitterman Daniel Baldwin Hess Department of Architecture and Design Department of Urban and Regional Alfred State University of New York Planning New York, USA University at Buffalo Buffalo, NY, USA ISSN 2365-757X ISSN 2365-7588 (electronic) The Urban Book Series ISBN 978-3-030-66072-7 ISBN 978-3-030-66073-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66073-4 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021. This book is an open access publication. 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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland This book is dedicated to the memory of Michael Thurston His experiences and sacrifices—together with gay men and lesbian women of his generation—made possible better lives for generations of LGBTQ+ people they never met … …and to LGBTQ+ pioneers everywhere who fight for acceptance, dignity, and civil rights. Foreword I am honored to introduce readers to The Life and Afterlife of Gay Neighborhoods: Renaissance and Resurgence (Springer, 2021) edited by Alex Bitterman and Daniel Baldwin Hess. This important work summarizes years of sustained research about how LGBTQ+ people inhabit and interact with urban space, forming gay neighbor- hoods (or “gayborhoods”) that have been a hallmark in recent decades of gay urban life. In the recent past, before gay neighborhoods such as we conceive of them today, gay bars provided one venue for LGBTQ+ people to visit and learn about them- selves. These bars were often located in isolated and dangerous locations and were often raided by police. However, greater physical safety made it easier for larger numbers of LGBTQ+ individuals to begin to form communities. In Montréal, for example, this happened in the early 1980s. The gay village in Montréal had changed a great deal over the years, and throughout my own research, I interviewed many LGBTQ+ people who helped me to better understand their contributions to creating safe community spaces—fledgling gay neighborhoods—based on the various visions of what they wanted. Their energy was contagious. When these early pioneers and business owners had a creative idea, they went for it. It was a cast of different characters doing different things and their efforts built the neighborhoods we know today. In assembling this impressive volume, the editors have brought together a collec- tion of leading scholars who document for future generations the evolution of gay neighborhoods and especially their maturation that brings us to the present-day situation of depopulation and “de-gaying” in gayborhoods. The chapters contained herein examine the evolution, history, and importance of gay neighborhoods and how they have changed over time and persevered against adversity for the LGBTQ+ community. With its comprehensive treatment of LGBTQ+ culture as reflected in urban placemaking, this critical work will undoubtedly become a key resource in LGBTQ+ studies, provide a comprehensive resource for students and scholars across the academic landscape from architecture to sociology and from anthropology to urban planning. The editors are to be commended for including research from a diverse group of scholars representing various academic disciplines and focusing the chapters on the importance of gayborhoods not only to LGBTQ+ people, but to society more broadly. vii viii Foreword This book introduces a broad cross-section of perspectives that successive gener- ations of LGBTQ+ individuals share about gay life—and especially about gaybor- hoods. Sometimes there is harmony in these viewpoints between generational cohorts, and sometimes there is discord. But interactions with other groups can enlarge our worldview and lead to more inclusive outcomes. I have witnessed this throughout my career as an administrator in higher education and a professor of sociology and anthropology. From my own window I can see the gay village in Montréal. Rainbow flags are proudly displayed and vibrant colored decorations hang above the street, created by an artist that joked the various colors show the “eighteen shades of gay,” representing the many differences united under the LGBTQ+ moniker. The gay neighborhood in Montréal remains thriving and vital. It too has changed over the years to become more inclusive but still serves as a magnet for LGBTQ+ people of all ages and plays an important role for the dominant group in the broader city. As we navigate through the tumultuous year 2020—through the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and social unrest in North America and other countries, and the eternal struggle for greater equity and equality—we are reminded that the unique manifestations of the struggle for human and civil rights are evident in places like gay neighborhoods. We are reminded of the critical, cultural, and historic impor- tance of gayborhoods as the engines of societal momentum. Like the adaptation of gay neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s to battle the HIV/AIDS pandemic, gay neighborhoods, though at a point