My project is centered on gentrification in the Miami neighborhood of Wynwood and how this process of gentrification has allowed for the opening of queer spaces. To understand this phenomenon, I have started researching studies that connect gentrification to LGBTQ communities. Most of the studies that I have found center around how gentrification in neighborhoods have affected LGBTQ communities that live there. Other studies link gentrification of neighborhoods to the introduction of LGBTQ communities. Though it is good indication that there is data out there around this subject, it is not exactly entirely linked to my own project. The studies that I have been reading on discuss gentrification as it affects LGBTQ populations (and vice versa). However, what I seek to understand and explain in my own project is the effect of gentrification on LGBTQ spaces.
What may account for the lack of applicability of these studies to Wynwood is that this neighborhood may not be experiencing a typical form of gentrification. The research that I have done looks at displacement of certain groups based on the introduction of another group into the neighborhood. For example, gentrification in the Bay Area, specifically Palo Alto, may take the shape of displacement of Black and Brown communities resulting from the influx of young, predominantly white tech companies and workers into the area. Another example which I’ll elaborate more on is the displacement of working-class residents in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans as a result of an influx of predominantly middle-class gay professionals. Unlike these examples, Wynwood’s gentrification may be more attributed to commercialization of properties in the neighborhood – warehouses being turned to art galleries and hip restaurants. The gentrification of Wynwood may be more aligned to the transformation, commodification and privatization of space than shifting demographics.
I will still use the literature on gentrification and its affects on LGBTQ populations as a theoretical basis to build off for my final project.
Annotation:
Queer Economics by Lawrence Knopp: Chapter 19, “Gentrification and Gay Neighborhood Formation in New Orleans: A Case Study”
In this chapter, Knopp introduces a connection between a gay community’s social and political activity and the affect that that has on what she refers to as the urban land market. He cites a study on The Castro neighborhood of San Francisco where “gay gentrifiers were ‘moral refugees’ who ‘paid for their identity’ by making enormous financial and personal sacrifices in order to survive” (354). In doing so, the gay gentrifiers contributed to “urban renovation,” which beautified the city (354). His own case study examines how gay middle-class professionals transformed the neighborhood of Marigny from “a
working class area experiencing disinvestment… to a more solidly middle-class and substantially renovated one (Pg. 355). He claims that there were three events that were crucial to this transformation. First was the movement of the gay middle-class professionals to the neighborhood in the early 1960s (starting off as a small group). Second was a movement led and organized by the gay residents to historically preserve the neighborhood. Third, as a result of this movement, was the arrival of predominantly gay speculators and developers to the area in the mid-to-late 1970s.
Lopez’s Comments:
Octavio, your project keeps on getting better. It’s really exciting work! What I like about this, and as you point out, is that gentrification is typically seen as a process adverse to communities of color. In your case, gentrification in Wynwood is opening up new spaces for LGBTQ populations. However, does this have a paradoxal effect. While, gentrification does open up spaces for LGBTQ folks, wouldn’t the pressures brought by it also lead communities of color to slowly move out of the neighborhood? Just a thought. Keep up the good work!