Lesbians Sniff Out Values in Kensington
We’ve all heard that if a real estate investor wants to find the next hot nabe, he only needs to find where the artists and gay people are moving. According to The Observer, though, it pays to watch a particular subset of the gay community: Lesbians. “Practical, and always in search of domesticity, lesbians are…
We’ve all heard that if a real estate investor wants to find the next hot nabe, he only needs to find where the artists and gay people are moving. According to The Observer, though, it pays to watch a particular subset of the gay community: Lesbians. “Practical, and always in search of domesticity, lesbians are handy urban pioneers, dragging organic groceries and prenatal yoga to the ‘frontier’ neighborhoods they make hospitable for the rest of us,” writes The Observer. “In three to five years.” Sharon Zukin, a Brooklyn College professor and author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, identifies an even further subset to keep an eye on: “Lesbians may be canaries in the urban coal mine. And lesbian moms may be an even more acute canary, maybe because they are especially concerned about the character of the school district.” And which neighborhood have the lesbians annointed now? Kensington, where one lesbian rejoiced over the “crazy amount of space” while admitting that the trade-off is that “there is nothing to do within walking distance except grocery shopping.” The article has already been met by criticism from one blog. In a post titled Bad Gentrification Writing, Ditmas Park Blog says, “This Observer story really reads like a parody of the genre, and manages to get all the details wrong in passing…We remember the days when they had editors, and a clue, at the Observer.”
Lesbians as ‘Canaries in the Urban Coal Mine’ [Observer]
Photo by bonnevilleyacht76
I think the only photo that shows someplace in Kensington is the one Brownstoner is using. Way to go, Mr. B!
“If you are trying to say that stereotypes are an accurate reflection of those who they purport to describe, even if not every individual member of that group fits, well, not really”
Well, if you take out the word “accurate”, that IS actually an accurate description of “stereotype”…a generic description of group behavior which may not apply to individuals. Just because the use of the word is pejorative does not mean it’s not valid.
Will there soon be a “Scratch and Sniff” function here???
“I also highly resent the “urban pioneers…neighborhoods…[they] make hospitable for the rest of us.” We’re talking about neighborhoods with people who have been getting along fine, raising their families and living their lives. Not perfect neighborhoods, like there are any, but not the same as colonizing Mars, either.”
Well that what they do at Brownstoner, right?????????!!!
The What
Someday this war is gonna end..
quote:
And I don’t like stereotype of gay or lesbian gentrifying a neighborhood.
how and why did that notion ever even come to play? im being serious. i know lots of people like to think that omg the gays moved somewhere and then others move in. what? i think maybe back in the day that could be the case when there were tons of sex clubs in seedy neighborhoods, but how is that even remotely true these days? supposedly lesbians dressed like christopher columbus discovered park slope and gay men dressed like biker clowns discovered chelsea, but like was that really the case? or is it just a case of gay people in general stealing claims and self aggrandizing themselves on stuff? i suspect the latter.. honestly.
one of the worst qualities i think gay people have in general is that they try to pretend like they discovered crap first. please, check your egos at the door. i know some of you straight people agree with me.
*rob*
Nobody’s mentioned the awesomest headline ever? Or complained!?
Vox Pop, Natural Frontier, Sycamore, Stratford Road, the Food Co-op are in “Victorian Flatbush” as stated but, all the places mentioned are in Ditmas Park West and not Kensington. Yes, there is no invisible forcefield separating the two neighborhoods, but if your feature is on Kensington why site locations adjacent to the area?
The area is not “deep, deep” Brooklyn, nor is it miles away from Park Slope.
Author should have taken some of the time spent on sex orientaton and researched neighborhood orientation.
even using ‘canary’ implies they are just a test to see if survive. Agree that idea of ‘pioneer’ is condescending. And I don’t like stereotype of gay or lesbian gentrifying a neighborhood.
Besides all the patronizing nonsense in the article, it appears fact checking took a budget cut at the Observer. Every place the article mentions and the accompanying photos are not even in Kensington but in neighborhoods of Victorian Flatbush.