When stroller-pushing displaces cruising as the most popular activity on the main promenade; when a muffin shop takes over the space formerly occupied by your favorite porn & lube emporium; when walk-up apartment buildings are torn down to make way for high rise condos: these are sure signs that your beloved gay neighborhood is getting a family-friendly, upscale makeover. Of course, if you don’t like it or can’t afford it anymore, you’re free to go -- and once again start the process of rehabilitating an economically depressed, marginal part of town into something just this side of livable.

The Old Gayborhood?
Is corporate and cultural assimilation sounding a death knell for the Gayborhood? Ironic victims of their own success, many historically gay urban areas aren’t what they used to be. Change, it seems, is inevitable; but isn’t the sudden influx of banks and drug stores and schools and straights and Jamba Juice franchises a sort of ultimate backhanded compliment? That depends on who you are and what you mean when you think of "home." What Edge found was that more and more straights want a piece of the safety, acceptance and hipster cred that emanates from the Gayborhood -- while some gays want nothing more than to get away from it all.

Gary J. Gates is a Senior Research Fellow with The Williams Institute, a national think tank at the UCLA School of Law dedicated to "advancing critical thought in the field of sexual orientation and public policy." He is co-author of 2004’s The Gay and Lesbian Atlas which used data from the 2000 U.S. census to "confirm and challenge anecdotal information about the spatial distribution and demographic characteristics" of the GLBT community.

Although it’s a generalization, Gates confirms it’s also generally true that gay neighborhoods are "more racially and ethnically diverse; they have smaller homes and more apartment/condos; they’re generally more urban, have higher rates of crime and lower property values." The long-term impact of such stats means that gays tend to move into a horrible neighborhood that nobody wants, fix it up, and then get priced out of the safe, vibrant, trendy urban destination they created. It happened in NYC as gays went from Greenwich Village (pictured) to Chelsea to Hell’s Kitchen; it’s happening now as high rises and boutiques become ubiquitous on the Lower East Side (as the city runs out of rundown places to fix up, skid row’s Bowery is finally getting a makeover!).

Gates confirms a familiar pattern where gay men, who are generally more urban than married heterosexual couples, take physical and financial risks by moving into marginal neighborhoods with an eye on getting a good return on their investment: "They’re more likely to move into areas that have relatively good housing stock, but perhaps in decay; that have not particularly good schools or parks and amenities you’d want for children ... They can devote more of their disposable income to revitalizing or renovating their homes. That drives the property values up and starts a process where block by block the neighborhood looks better. What’s often not talked about is the downside that the original residents are often priced out of their neighborhood. It happened in my neighborhood in D.C. where residents could no longer afford the property taxes. Gentrification is often good for the bottom line; you’ve increased its value to the city. But where do these indigenous residents go?"

Baby Strollers = Change
Some gay neighborhoods haven’t gone completely corporate or completely straight; they’ve just absorbed a more diverse population who came not to conquer, but to live in peace (just as a new generation of gays and lesbians no longer feel the need to sequester themselves in homo-only pockets).

Wes Freas is a former Upper West Side New Yorker who moved with his partner to San Francisco in 1991. A broker with Zephyr Real Estate, he’s been working in the San Francisco market since 2001. Along with the move to a different coast, Freas and his partner made "a decision not to move to the Castro because we didn’t want to, as we joked, move into the gay ghetto." Freas identifies himself as part of a generation of gays and lesbians who live and work openly without comments, problems or fanfare.

"We now live in the Potrero Hill neighborhood. We’re out, we’re open and we don’t feel the need to live within a specifically gay neighborhood anymore." As for the famously swishy Castro (which for years has been as much of a tourist destination as a lifestyle one), "We’ve seen young straight professionals buying property in what used to be perceived as the old gay neighborhoods. I’ve had clients purchasing in the Castro, straight clients, because they feel the gay neighborhood has an acceptance and energy ... It’s happening all across the city; not like baby strollers linked up on every intersection, but the gay community has accepted the fact that there are going to be straight couples with children and strollers in our neighborhoods."

Further contributing to the diversity of a Gayborhood’s population, Gates points to a recent phenomenon where "these neighborhoods are suddenly more attractive to higher income, often childless heterosexual couples. The gay first-movers are now priced out, particularly single gay people. You’ve seen this pattern in NYC and Washington, D.C.; they go to the next neighborhood over. In D.C., it was DuPont Circle to Logan Circle and now it’s moving to Shaw."

Freas views the cosmetic changes that accompany a shift in population as additions to the landscape that aren’t necessarily bad for business or perception: "The Castro is still very much a gay neighborhood and you feel that when you come here. There are some more mainstream restaurants and shops opening; I mean, we have a Pottery Barn and Starbucks. It’s not just about the gay community buying tight Levis and T-shirts and dare I say the porn. We used to be known for shop after shop of those things."

What of the Gay Family & The Future? Lesberhoods?
Asked to mention some of the more surprising statistics gleaned from his Gay and Lesbian Atlas research, Gates is quick to point out that "Almost a quarter of same sex couples are raising children; and those couples universally defy the stereotypes. Almost forty percent are non white ... The state where same sex couples are most likely to be raising children is Mississippi; family sizes are larger in the Midwest and South, so you find same sex couples are more likely to have children there than in urban areas that have higher concentrations of gay people." While gay men gravitate toward an urban hub, Gates says that "High concentration lesbian areas tend to be a little further away from these central cores. One of the reasons for that is lesbians make less than gay men; and lesbians are more likely to have children, so fewer have the luxury to devote their resources to developing their home. In NYC, the higher lesbian concentrations are in Brooklyn, outside of the Manhattan core. In D.C., the lesbian neighborhoods are in Tacoma Park, on the edge of where D.C. and Maryland meet. If you look at San Francisco, lesbians tend to be in the East Bay and gay men tend to be in the city."

But where do the gays and lesbians go when they’ve redeemed every last part of the city and there’s no marginal neighborhoods left to flee to and fix up? Florida, of course!

Retirement Communities: The New Gayborhood?
An increasingly appealing option for those priced out of the urban Gayborhood is a move not across town, but out of state. As the original architects ease into retirement age, more and more are expected to mimic the actions of their heterosexual counterparts by pulling up stakes and heading for a more affordable and decidedly warmer climate. Just as they originally sought to be with their own kind (according to sexual orientation), graying queer boomers are once again cocooning themselves -- but this time, according to age group.

Al Usack and Ed Kobee are residents of Palms of Manatosa: Florida (and America’s) "First Gay & Lesbian Retirement Community." A combination of single family homes and condominium villas, Kobee describes Palms as "a dream of one man who bought it back in 1995/1996 when he purchased twenty-five acres with the desire to create a gay and lesbian retirement community that was affordable. Back in 1997, when the first homes were being constructed, it was the only gay and lesbian retirement community in the country. The front part, single-family homes, of which there were twenty-one, sold out in 2001. The phase II villas were started in 2002. That section is sixty percent complete."

Along with his partner Usack, Kobee sought out Palms of Manatosa "for the community. You don’t have to worry about covering up what you’re doing with your neighbors and you can go to them with your problems." Although Florida remains, in general, a conservative state, Kobee’s overall assessment of retired life in the sunshine state is optimistic: "The surrounding community has never been a problem here with us, even though we’re in a county that is very conservative. They leave us alone, though. We get a little vandalism every now and then, but it’s actually a little less than the surrounding community. They tend to ignore us, surprisingly I find."

Also surprising is the fact that Palms of Manatosa "doesn’t have a gate. We don’t have security guards. We’re open to curiosity seekers to some extent ... We just love having a community of caring people. Everyone knows everyone else. There is tremendous support." Kobee views this sort of out-in-the-open community as a sign of things to come: "There are other retirement communities that have sprung up. Rainbow Visions is building a very expensive one out west. They raised scads of money before they got started and a couple of others around the country are doing the same thing. We lead the way by showing that such a thing is possible. I think a pretty big portion of the baby boomers will decide that if they’re going to a retirement community, they want it to be with gays and lesbians."

Broker Rudy Molinet, owner of Marquis Properties Realty, observes a trend in Key West, Florida where "younger retirees who came here in their twenties and thirties are coming back in their fifties and sixties to enjoy a youthful retirement."

Unlike recently created artificial retirement communities, Key West has been and remains an inclusive destination for the unconventional. Molinet likens its mix of artists, outcasts and others to "Greenwich Village with palm trees ... We don’t have little gay ghettos here like you have in the Castro or Chelsea. Key West is a microcosm of acceptance where no one cares if you are gay or straight; there are rainbow flags all over town."

Those flags were first planted in the 1970s, as "Key West was economically devastated when the Navy left. The gay and lesbian community was credited with gentrifying the historic district." Back in the 70s, when "gays and lesbians were not in the mainstream areas, Key West became a safe haven." That quickly led to "full acceptance and integration. Approximately thirty percent of our year round population self identifies as GLBT. They are woven into the political, social and business fabric of the community."

Key West is also home to Truman Annex, a "gated community with 24-hour security" that Molinet points out is "really a converted Navy base. The development agreement with the city was the gates must remain open during the day. At night they close, but you can still walk through the main area. The street at the entrance is private. You get asked where you’re going, but they don’t stop you from walking in there."

Coming Back to the Castro
As with much of America in general, the future of gayborhoods may lie in its ability to attract and accommodate a graying population. Freas predicts that the Castro’s aging population is "going to see seniors moving into neighborhoods for services and transportation. We have a gay and lesbian community center very close to the Castro and we’re just launching our first affordable housing facility built to welcome LGBT seniors. When I lived in NYC, I felt like I could live on the Upper West Side and walk out my door and get anything that I needed. And now, we’re able to do it here ... In the Castro, there are several plans for new development of multi-unit properties that are on the boards and that’s what will bring people back to the community; good, affordable housing."

Scott Stiffler is a New York City based writer and comedian who has performed stand-up, improv, and sketch comedy. His solo shows include Damaged by the 70s and An Evening With Insane Mark Twain & Dead Bette Davis. He must eat twice his weight in fish every day, or he becomes radioactive.