ABSTRACT
Cities are not just landscapes of socioeconomic and racial/ethnic inequality; they are also terrains of inequality by gender and sexuality. While the urban underclass and homeless experience spatial isolation and containment in the marginal spaces of the inner city, women have since the postwar era experienced spatial entrapment in the suburbs. Suburbanization may be seen as a form of segregation. Only more recently have women found greater spatial mobility with their entry into the labor force and the widespread gentrification movements occurring in many central cities. The “return to the city” has been correlated with a set of demographic transitions surrounding a decline in traditional male-led households with children, and the growth of double-income no-children households, and double-income gay and lesbian households, as well as single households. The growing visibility of gays and lesbians in American society is partly correlated with the growing visibility of gay and lesbian communities in the central city.
