Similar culture clashes are playing out across the nation in historically gay districts, nicknamed gayborhoods. Places like Greenwich Village in Manhattan and the Castro district in San Francisco, once incubators for the gay rights movement, have “straightened” in recent decades, leading to incidents of resistance and some angst about the effects on the L.G.B.T.Q. community.
The changes are due in large part to the increased expense that comes with the rising popularity and gentrification of many inner cities. But growing acceptance, legally and societally, of the L.G.B.T.Q. community is also responsible. Less discrimination means more options of where to live, and many residents, especially millennials, no longer believe they must huddle among their own kind to survive and thrive. [...]
“When I came to San Francisco, all of us, regardless of skin color, or ethnicity, or economic status or gender, we were all criminals — in the eyes of the law, we were all unapprehended felons,” Mr. Jones said in an interview. “In many cities it was illegal for us to even gather. That outlaw status broke down many of the barriers that exist in the larger society.” [...]
The Castro, in San Francisco, for example, had been somewhat abandoned by a working class exodus to the suburbs, creating an opening in the 1970s for gay and lesbian residents. Today the area is one of the most expensive residential districts in the nation. The average single-family home there sells for more than $2 million, according to a 2016 report compiled by the Paragon Real Estate Group, which studies the neighborhood. Market-rate two-bedroom apartments rent for about $4,400 a month, according to Rent Jungle, a company that tracks rents.
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