ABSTRACT
There have been numerous contributions expounding in social theoretical terms the linkages between sexuality or vice and urbanism (see—for example, Park and Burgess, 1925; Park, 1952; Castells, 1983; Knopp, 1994, 1995; and Mort, 1996). This paper has a much narrower focus and a different analytical framework. It adopts a pragmatic, principally economic approach, drawing heavily on some of the logic of the ‘new economic geography’ that has permeated contemporary economics. This study examines the 1980s and 1990s phenomenon of the emergence and development of the urban ‘gay village’ in various cities across England. The term ‘gay village’ possibly stems from the earlier gay agglomeration present in Greenwich Village, New York, and describes a visible physical clustering of gay enterprises and community within a city. These spatial entities have been the subject of sociological, cultural, historical and geographical scrutiny in North America, where some gay villages have been discernible since at least the 1970s (Chauncey, 1995; Stryker and van Buskirk, 1996; Grube, 1997; Boyd, 2003), in continental Europe (Sibalis, 1999) and in England (including, Quilley, 1997; Brown, 1997; Mort, 1998; Trumbach, 1999). In this paper, a principally economic case study of the UK's largest urban gay village in London is presented. Its evolution and development are considered with reference to the documented experiences of a number of other significant (in terms of number of gay enterprises) English urban gay villages. Retaining this wholly English focus provides an albeit imperfect means of controlling for some cross-cultural factors that may influence urban gay village development. In this limited way, an attempt is made to identify any commonalities and points of contrast in their evolution and development.
