Assessing the Impact of Gentrification on LGBTQ+ Spaces in the United States, 1973-2023

Mahesh Somashekhar, University of Illinois at Chicago

Whether going by the name of urban renewal, slum clearance, or gentrification, various forms of neighborhood change throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries have threatened vulnerable communities with displacement and erasure. Few contexts demonstrate this fact as effectively as the geographic spaces where LGBTQ+ people congregate to find safety and community. The impact of neighborhood change on LGBTQ+ spaces has been especially dramatic in large cities such as Chicago, which can host multiple LGBTQ+ spaces spread throughout the city. How has neighborhood change affected residents and community organizations in LGBTQ+ spaces? Before scholars can answer this question, they must be able to identify the locations of LGBTQ+ spaces, which poses two research problems. First, historical data on the geography of LGBTQ+ populations is notoriously difficult to find. Second, there are no official lists that indicate the spaces where LGBTQ+ people congregate, even if city tourism bureaus promote certain areas as formal gayborhoods. To remedy these issues, the authors have digitized and geocoded the U.S. Gayellow Pages, a national directory of local LGBTQ+ organizations across the United States that has been in continuous publication since 1973. Applying a novel spatial clustering algorithm on these data to inductively identify the locations of LGBTQ+ spaces in U.S. cities, this study investigates displacement patterns among LGBTQ+ residents and organizations in gentrified LGBTQ+ spaces that spanned the 25 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Preliminary analyses show how the displacement patterns of residents and community organizations can be decoupled, with residents leaving but community organizations staying put. In other words, gentrified LGBTQ+ spaces are increasingly becoming organizational focal points for a residentially dispersed LGBTQ+ community.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 20. Making the West: Spatial Perspectives