The Urban in Economic and Sexual Justice
While there has been a decline of interest in the national scale of governance in political economy, there has been a growth of interest in cities, how they are connected by (transnational) flows of people, capital and knowledge, and the competition for inward investment, entrepreneurs, income from tourism, etc.
Richard Florida’s book The Rise of the Creative Class has been highly influential in urban policy-setting agendas associated with city development and regeneration strategies. Florida argues that economically successful and entrepreneurial cities in the U.S. are those that contain high concentrations of bohemians, gays and immigrants. He calculates a “gay index” based on census data of same-sex couples and suggests that cities shown to be open to gays are also open to innovation and supportive of entrepreneurialism.
Rather problematically, he argues that: “to some extent, homosexuality represents the last frontier of diversity in our society, and thus a place that welcomes the gay community welcomes all kinds of people” (2002: 256). In Florida’s argument, homosexuality becomes equated with entrepreneurialism and affluence, but renders invisible economically-disadvantaged queers. There are also problems with the way he discusses the notion of creativity and middle class, which ignores vernacular, working class forms of creativity. He goes on to state that: “The Gay Index was positively associated with the Creative Class . . . but it was negatively associated with the Working Class” (ibid: 258). Arguing that cities containing large numbers of gays, geeks and foreign-born residents tend to be more entrepreneurial, Florida draws attention to the competition between cities to attract professionals, entrepreneurs, inward investment, and tourism. This argument reproduces a neoliberal discourse where urban governance is primarily concerned with promoting cities as business-friendly spaces of innovation and entrepreneurialism, as opposed to addressing and tackling social inequalities within their citizenry.
Strategies to promote international lesbian and gay tourism have generated controversy and produced distinctions between legitimate and illegitimate sexual subjectivities. In a study based on Manchester, UK, Howard Hughes (2002) argues that the branding and marketing of the city’s gay village nationally and internationally is having potentially deleterious consequences leading to a loss of ownership and a “de-gaying” of the space. He also notes criticism of marketing campaigns for “promoting sex” and giving a poor impression of the city. Discourses around gay entrepreneurialism and the marketing of gay tourist destinations position affluent, entrepreneurial, professional gays of the creative and tourist economy as distinct from the “queer unwanted”—individuals whose lifestyles are less respectable and do not fit the narratives of urban regeneration strategies.
Stephen Tomsen’s (2006) research on homophobia in New South Wales in Australia also illustrates the importance of spatial ordering in distinguishing between notions of gay and lesbian respectability. Drawing attention to the law’s distinction between “innocent” and “guilty” victims of homophobic attacks, Tomsen argues that the formation of respectable, gentrified gay and lesbian spaces has helped to reinforce distinctions between proper and improper homosexualities. One of the negative consequences arising from the de-sexing of lesbian and gay cultural identities associated with the development of these spaces has been that people engaging in public sex become further marginalised as improper, the “guilty” victims of homophobic attacks.
Concluding Comments
Tomsen’s essay should remind us that we need to recognise the significance of the erotic and the spatial in the way distinctions are made between those whose bodies are seen to matter, and those who are seen as without value. Moreover, an awareness of the scaling of economic and sexual practices can help us recognise the limitations of notions of economic and sexual justice that are rooted in specific spatial contexts. In attempting to articulate a vision of sexual and economic justice, we need to recognise both the significance of space, and the necessity to strive for holistic ways of conceptualising socialspatial relations.
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