glad to
be gay
Can the success of the gay community in reviving run-down inner city areas become a template for urban renewal - or will efforts to create gay villages simply produce new ghettoes? Caron Lipman reports
On the face of it Manchester’s gay village has been a phenomenal success. Taking over the once seedy area around Canal Street, it has spearheaded the regeneration and repopulation of the city centre, bringing in a flood of tourists and trendy local punters.
Its success is making other major cities take note. Newcastle-upon-Tyne included the development of a gay village in its city centre action plan at the end of 1999. The Greater London Authority has asked the Gay Business Association to submit proposals for its economic development plan, and a ‘gay small business village’ is on the cards.
A growing belief in the power of the ‘pink pound’ - the higher than average disposable income of childless gay couples - has turned a once shunned minority into the darlings of property developers and retail chains.
Academics, too, have woken up to the phenomenon. Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University, who studied the city’s cultural quarters, concluded that gay villages could breathe new life into urban centres.
In the US, Professor Richard Florida at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh argued recently that the percentage of gays in the population is the single best predictor of cities’ ability to maintain essential workforces. Gays, he said, provide evidence of the extent of diversity, tolerance, openness and interesting cultural life - features deemed attractive by the new breed of knowledge economy workers.
Gay people also appear to have a knack of discovering the potential of areas overlooked by others. As gay entrepreneur Stephen Coote points out, gay districts emerge in rundown areas which are ‘cheap, away from others, with good transport links, and we sense we could do things with them.’ If two or three gay businesses start up, a cluster is likely to form, with others attracted by the fact that ‘someone’s already there to sit next to’.
This mirrors the emergence of Manchester’s village. Canal Street was once the city’s red light district, with a smattering of rather tired gay bars. Then, in 1991, gay entrepreneur Peter Dalton set up the Manto Group and opened a trendy bar which, he recalls, ‘stood out like a sore thumb among the ruins’. It took a while for others to latch on, but soon empty buildings were converted into fashionable apartments, bars and nightclubs.
But appearances may be deceptive. Manchester’s village appears to be feeling the pinch, with at least two local gay businesses contacted by New Start warning ominously that the area has peaked, and predicting a growing number of ‘casualties’. Already a Whitbread-owned bar has closed, and another has been sold.
‘What started out as quite cool became ridiculous,’ Mr Dalton says. ‘As soon as the plcs, developers, breweries and City finance saw a market, everyone wanted to snap up a slice of it. They came into the village for the wrong reasons, just to make a killing when Canal Street was flavour of the month.’
In terms of physical regeneration, the results have been a success. But there have been social costs. Of 32 bars and restaurants, only half a dozen are now run by and for gay people, and these have been ‘pushed into the back streets,’ says bar owner Julia Grant. ‘We make these places trendy, and everyone else benefits,’ adds Mr Coote.
When the annual Mardi Gras street festival, run by the village for charity, became too big to handle, Manchester Council stepped in, boasting in its official blurb that the 1999 festival provided an ‘estimated £20m boost to the economy’. But it was run as a purely commercial venture, causing much local resentment.
While gays, tourists, and a trendy young ‘straight’ crowd have flooded the area, the mix has not always been successful. Two years ago national newspapers highlighted a story of a woman who had been turned out of a wine bar with her baby because she was not gay, and this fuelled growing tensions. Many gay people no longer use the area - some because they no longer need what they perceive as a ‘ghetto’, others because the area now attracts too many straight people.
In the meantime, the flavour of the month has shifted to the newly revamped Deansgate and Salford Quays. The ‘standard of punter’ has been lowered, Ms Grant says, with increasing homophobic attacks forcing more police intervention.
A Manchester Council spokesperson admits that any visible minority group ‘becomes a target’. He says breweries that are concerned with ‘niche marketing with no gay commitment’ are now finding it tougher, as gay people vote with their feet.
But he adds: ‘Surely with any natural or stimulated regeneration initiative you get an initial burst of activity. If you revisit it a decade later, it will have moved on. Every business suffers if a bubble is created.’
Onlookers point out that gay villages tend to emerge organically. They argue they cannot be imposed by outside agencies. ‘Originally, Manchester was completely uncontrived,’ says Mr Dalton. ‘It just happened, it wasn’t in a masterplan.’
‘Lots of cities look at the village and think, we could have that here,’ adds one research fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, who believes Manchester’s experience may offer lessons for cultural industries elsewhere.
‘Now the area has become a tourist trap and gay businesses are displaced by the broader business community. This is a classic narrative of this kind of regeneration - organic cultural and social vitality under threat from homogenous, faceless industries. The tension lies in competing motives, and managing this is very difficult.’
It’s a point taken up by David Allison, spokesperson for campaign group Outrage!, who believes the whole concept of gay villages is flawed. ‘Gay villages have not attempted to build a balanced population. A proper village ought to be able to accommodate people without money, such as the old or students. But they’ve been done on purely commercial grounds, with companies latching onto whatever goose appears to be laying the golden egg.’
Mr Coote agrees. He believes the wider social acceptance of homosexuality may be taking its toll on the market for gay nightlife which, at least in London, is saturated, with no new growth in recent years.
‘I think the market is as big as it’s going to get. Anyone who wants to come out has done it,’ he says. ‘Trendy, young gay people don’t care if a bar is gay or not, and there is greater use of the internet to meet people.’
Others studying the market are also expressing concerns. Michael Kelly, city centre manager for Cardiff, says he has a ‘nagging little doubt’ that developing a village in the city would create a ghetto. He believes there are other ways of encouraging gay business, not least by ‘developing the idea of the 24-hour city, which is about creating a feel-safe, inclusive environment for everyone.’
In Cardiff, a gay village is likely to form as a ‘conceptual area rather than a physical one, as a growing cultural influence,’ he says. The result may be to encourage forms of regeneration that can escape the danger of boom and bust economics.
Newcastle: gay by design?
By the end of May over £5m will have been invested in Newcastle’s gay village. It’s hoped it will create nearly 120 new jobs, with nine bars and clubs, and three new venues mooted.
‘I am aware of the criticisms levelled at Manchester, but there is no reason for straight people to take over in Newcastle because they already have their own nightlife district,’ says Simon Brooks, tourism projects development officer at Newcastle Council. He believes that, as long as there is a history and an infrastructure to support it, councils can do much to encourage a gay village.
‘It wouldn’t have happened without us doing anything,’ he says. ‘We have acted as the catalyst. But then it’s about not getting in anyone’s way. There is a lot of ill-informed talk about the pink pound. It’s important not to be seen as exploitative.’
He stresses the need for firm policies on discrimination, and says councils must develop a reputation as an honest broker, able to keep confidences. Being gay himself has helped bridge the gap, he adds.
His approach is first to encourage a core commercial gay scene, and later to widen the focus to other business opportunities. Community development will be important, he believes, through helping local people build their confidence, test new ideas and research the market. Initial research has already thrown up new opportunities, such as bars for women and a demand for gay work spaces. The council can also forge links with developers and help with conservation grants for listed buildings, he adds.
Further information: Simon Brooks, tel: 0191 277 8044.
