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than gay men, or than all households,
to shift
toward higher vacancy rate
neighborhoods nationally.
Increasing Concentration or Acceleration
Collins (
2004
) and Ruting (
2008
) con-
tend that gays are attracted to neighborhoods with initially higher settlements of
gays, prompting an “acceleration” of their representation. Table
19.3
does not
provide much support for an acceleration of representation. While census tracts
with more gay male, or lesbian, households in 2000 have more such households in
2009, there are no coefficients for the 2000 census tract shares of the population of
gay men or lesbians greater than one, while the coefficient for the 2000 census tract
shares of the population of all households is greater than one for the nation and for
each region. Consistent with Table
19.1
, which shows greater segregation of gay
male partners than of lesbian partners and greater decreases in segregations for
lesbian household over the years, the regression analyses in Table
19.3
consistently
show greater dispersion (relative to 2000 locations) of lesbian partner households;
the coefficient of the census tract's 2000 share of own group is less for lesbian
households than for gay male households in every case, and by fairly large margins.
Closer to Downtown
With fewer children and greater demand for night life
[Collins (
2004
)], gay men and lesbians are expected to be more centrally located,
in more densely populated neighborhoods, than other households. Once again, this
hypothesized difference in location behavior for gay partnerships is not clearly
evident in all the relevant measures. Table
19.3
shows gay male households
decreasing with distance from downtown only in the Northeast region; lesbian
household concentration exhibits no significant relationship with distance from
downtown. In the Midwest region, gay male and lesbian household concentrations
actually increase with distance from downtown, relative to all households. And
relative to all households at the national level, gay male and lesbian partnership
households shift toward census tracts with more single family detached homes.
However, unlike all households, gay male and lesbian households do not shift away
from census tracts with greater population density.
Co-Location of Gay Men and Lesbians
Gates and Ost (
2004
) indicate that
locations for gay men and lesbians, while different, are more correlated with each
other than with other household types. We find inconsistent support for this
hypothesis. Nationally, and in each region, gay men are no more likely to
co-locate near lesbian households than near all non-family households. However,
lesbians shift more toward census tracts with greater relative representation of gay
male partners and away from those with more non-family households nationally
and in all regions except the South. Lesbians also shift toward census tracts with
greater numbers of all households, as opposed to nonfamily households or to gay
male households, in the Northeast and Midwest.
