Gay village

A gay village, also known as a gayborhood or gaybourhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars and pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, boutiques, and bookstores.

Such areas may represent an LGBTQ-friendly oasis in an otherwise hostile city or may simply have a high concentration of gay residents and businesses. Some areas are often associated with being "gay" cities or resorts, due to their image and acceptance of the gay community.

Much as other urbanized groups, some LGBTQ people have managed to utilize their spaces as a way to reflect their cultural values and serve the special needs of individuals in relation to society at large. Today, these neighborhoods can typically be found in the upper-class areas of a given city, like in Manhattan, chosen for aesthetic or historic value, no longer resulting from the sociopolitical ostracization and the constant threat of physical violence from homophobic individuals that originally motivated these communities to live together for their mutual safety.

These neighborhoods are also often found in working-class parts of the city or in the neglected fringe of a downtown area – communities which may have been upscale historically but became economically depressed and socially disorganized. In these cases, the establishment of an LGBTQ community has turned some of these areas into more expensive neighborhoods, a process known as gentrification – a phenomenon in which LGBTQ people often play a pioneer role. This process does not always work out to the benefit of these communities, as they often see property values rise so high that they can no longer afford them, as high-rise condominiums are built and bars move out, or the only LGBTQ establishments that remain are those catering to a more upscale clientele. However, today's manifestations of "queer ghettos" bear little resemblance to those of the 1970s.

The term ghetto originally referred to those places in European cities where Jews were required to live according to local law. During the 20th century, ghetto came to be used to describe the areas inhabited by a variety of groups that mainstream society deemed outside the norm, including not only Jews but poor people, LGBTQ people, ethnic minorities, hobos, prostitutes, and bohemians.

These neighborhoods, which often arise from crowded, highly dense, and often deteriorated inner city districts, are critical sites where members of gender and sexual minorities have traditionally congregated. From one perspective, these spaces are places of marginality created by an often homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic heterosexual community; from another perspective, they are places of refuge where members of gender and sexual minorities can benefit from the concentration of safe, nondiscriminatory resources and services (just as other minorities do).

In some cities, LGBT people congregate in visibly identified neighborhoods, while in others, they are dispersed in neighborhoods, which have less visibility, because a liberal, affirming counterculture is present. For example, LGBT residents of Philadelphia developed the city's Gayborhood, LGBT people in San Francisco congregate in the Castro neighborhood, while LGBT people in Seattle concentrate in the city's older bohemian stomping grounds of Capitol Hill, and those of Montreal have concentrated in a working-class neighborhood referred to administratively as "Centre-Sud" but largely known as "Le Village". These areas, however, have higher concentrations of LGBT residents and businesses that cater to them than do surrounding neighborhoods. Some cities, like Austin, Texas, have not developed a defined gay village despite the city of Austin being home to many LGBT people with developed LGBT-friendly businesses and a counterculture present.

The neighbourhood of Schöneberg in Berlin was the first gay village in the world, developing in the 1920s. Prior to the 1960s and 1970s, specialized LGBT communities did not exist as gay villages in the United States; bars were usually where LGBT social networks developed, and they were located in certain urban areas where police zoning would implicitly allow so-called "deviant entertainment" under close surveillance.