Here at the Move to Suma, we’ve been keeping track of all the people who are moving to the suburbs, which is really just a thinly-veiled attempt to validate my own decision. The more people who are moving to the suburbs, the better I feel. So in the past year or so, we’ve commented on census studies showing that immigrants and African-Americans are increasingly migrating from the cities to the suburbs, and pointed out a few celebrities who are also making the move.
So now, we also want to welcome our newest addition — lesbians!
It used to be that gay, lesbian and bi-sexual people in the suburbs found the climate less than welcoming. LGBT people had to blend in to make it in suburban neighborhoods. Not so now. These days suburban living is viewed as a real option for LGBT people and they are moving to suburbs that are close to NYC as well as towns further out.
According to Gary Gates, a demographer from the Urban Institute who did a study for HRC after the 2000 census, gay male couples largely prefer urban environments (45%) to suburbs (41.3%) and lesbian couples settle more often in suburban locales (46%) than city centers (38.2%).
The post from Its Conceivable recounts the story of a lesbian couple with a one-year old daughter who moved to New Rochelle, a lovely suburb of Manhattan, where they’ve found a community of new York City “ex-pats.”
So what do we think of those stats, showing such a mixed preference among gays and lesbians for the cities versus the suburbs? I mean, it certainly flies in the face of conventional wisdom that the LGBT community would prefer the traditional greater levels of tolerance and diversity of the cities. But I think key to those stats is that they come from COUPLES, not singles. That is, it’s sort of interesting that gay and lesbian couples, particularly, I imagine, couples with children, have the same impulse to move to the suburbs that straight couples do. My guess is that gay and lesbian singles would have much stronger preferences for the city (which is, again, not so much different from straight people).
People are people, you know? Gay, straight, as they get older they have the same sort of changes in their lives that sometimes compel changes in where they live.
As we’ve noted a few times in this space, it is interesting to see all these demographic studies that are showing how the suburbs are becoming more ethnic and diverse: immigrants, African-Americans, and now the LGBT community. Most of these people come to the suburbs for the same reasons: more space, cheaper living, and an easier place to raise kids. It’s a universal need as you get older. But the nice part is that as we start to see those changes in the suburbs, we might actually find the suburbs becoming more “livable” to exiles. After all, one of the reasons a 17 year resident of Manhattan like me was willing to move to the suburbs was the opportunity to live somewhere like Nyack, which is relatively diverse and lefty and gay-friendly and all that. It would be nice to think that the suburbs will eventually evolve to provide more neighborhoods like that, places where you don’t feel like you’re selling your soul when you leave the city.
So welcome to Kim and Philippa, the couple from the story, and welcome to everyone else joining me in the suburbs.
