Queerying Neighborhood Change

Queer communities have historically gathered in cities, often accompanying a commonly held neighborhood change arc: through congregating in urban enclaves, these queer communities transform neighborhoods primarily through sweat equity and are then displaced by new residents and new development. These historically queer neighborhoods provide important narrative representation of often-invisible queer histories. Neighborhood change can threaten the preservation of these histories. To what extent do queer communities generate or respond to neighborhood change? By using multiple regression analysis and geographically weighted regression, this study explores the relationship between the distribution of gay and lesbian households and indicators of urban displacement in the City of New York. While indicators of urban displacement are predictive of the contemporary distribution of gay households, demographic data does not demonstrate an intertemporal relationship between the distribution of gay and lesbian households and indicators of displacement. This analysis suggests that in 21st Century New York, gay households are more concentrated in spaces marked by indicators of urban displacement but bear no significant relationship to ongoing neighborhood change.