San Francisco slows gentrification by naming gay leather neighbourhood a cultural district

In an attempt to slow down gentrification in the famously gay-friendly city, San Francisco has named the South of Market neighbourhood a gay and leather cultural district. The district will now have negotiating rights in future developments, and access to public money. The resolution also calls on policies to preserve historic LGBT+ sites and to promote the area.

“San Francisco’s South of Market has been a local and world capital for Leather culture since the 1960s,” the resolution states, “as well as one of the city’s most significant and distinctive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer neighbourhoods since the 1950s.”

The neighbourhood is known for the Folsom Street Fair, a gay kink and fetish event that draws thousands of people from across the world. It is also home to iconic leather bars, like the San Francisco Eagle.

Supervisor Jeff Sheehy also hopes to create a Castro LGBTQ Cultural district to “further protect the integrity of this enclave from the many pressures that are facing our vulnerable communities due to a rapidly changing city, so that the Castro can continue to be the heart of the LGBTQ movement as it progresses well into the foreseeable future.”

Keep up to date with the latest myGnews