Sex and the city : sexuality and urban order/disorder

Phil Hubbard, Andrew Gorman-Murray, Catherine J. Nash

Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Urban studies was slow to recognise that sex and sexuality are as important in the making of social and spatial orders as class, race or gender. Initial explorations of sex and the city were largely restricted to consideration of the distributions of 'zones of vice' and studies of prostitution (e.g. Kneeland 1913; Reckless 1926; Symanski 1974), and few foundational texts in the discipline made mention of sexuality. However, the increased visibility of lesbian and gay life in a range of Western cities in the 1970s and 1980s (notably San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, Berlin and Paris) arguably thrust sexuality on to the agenda of urban studies, with Manuel Castells' examination of gay groups as a new social movement in The City and the Grassroots (1983) highlighting the importance of the city in the social, economic and political life of those outside the heterosexual 'norm' (see also Castells and Murphy 1982). The realisation that some 'gay neighbourhoods' were also spaces of incipient gentrification helped to bring the investigation of sexuality into dialogue with unfolding debates in urban studies about the important role of culture and lifestyle in driving processes of capital accumulation through property development (e.g. Lauria and Knopp 1985).
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationA Research Agenda for Cities
EditorsJohn R. Short
Place of PublicationU.K.
PublisherEdward Elgar
Pages69-81
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9781785363429
ISBN (Print)9781785363412
Publication statusPublished - 2017

Keywords

  • cities
  • gay community
  • heterosexuality
  • sex
  • urban geography

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