Gender and sexuality II

I consider the iconic place of the urban gay neighborhood across the literature. Noting, but also qualifying, its early preponderance, I trace its relative decline as both an empirical concern and also a theoretical one. I argue that this trend reflects a queer pluralization of ‘sexuality’ as well as a growing sophistication of how geographers handle place and scale. There has been a resurgence of interest in the ‘gayborhood’, however, within and beyond geography, and so I consider this counter trend in relation to the changing structurations of sexualities and space, as well as the forces pushing to maintain such zones in the city.