![]() ![]() We also explain why a comparative historical geography of Toronto and Sydney is insightful. We begin by discussing geographical scholarship on the emergence of gay villages in the Global North with an emphasis on contemporary literature detailing the perceived “decline” of some longstanding gay villages, including those in Toronto and Sydney. In doing so, we contribute to the ongoing debates about the nature, characteristics, and implications of the shifting fortunes of some traditional gay villages in the Global North. We argue that a comparative historical geography approach provides insights into complex and multidimensional processes fomenting an ongoing and distinctive reordering of gendered and sexual landscapes occurring in both Toronto and Sydney. In this chapter, we examine the historical geographies of the now iconic gay villages in Toronto’s Church and Wellesley Street district and Sydney’s Oxford Street. We conclude that these distinctive historical geographies offer a cogent set of understandings by providing suggestive explanations for how Toronto’s and Sydney’s gendered and sexual landscapes are being reorganized in distinctive ways, and offer some wider implications for urban planning and policy. ![]() While there are a number of ways to consider these historical geographies, we focus on three factors for analysis: post-World War II planning policies, the emergence of “city of neighborhoods” discourses, and the positioning of gay villages within neoliberal processes of commodification and consumerism. Given their similar histories and geographies, our analysis considers how these historical geographies have both enabled and constrained how the respective gay villages respond to these challenges, opening up and closing down particular possibilities for alternative (and relational) geographies. LGBT and queer communities as well as mainstream interests argue that these gay villages are in some form of “decline” for various social, political, and economic reasons. This chapter argues that the historical geographies of Toronto’s Church and Wellesley Street district and Sydney’s Oxford Street gay villages are important in understanding ongoing contemporary transformations in both locations. ![]()
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