Transformations in LGBT consumer landscapes and leisure spaces in the neoliberal city

Abstract

This paper examines recent transformations in consumer landscapes and leisure spaces in inner-city LGBT neighbourhoods in Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada. In doing so, we rethink orthodox positions on neoliberalism and homonormativity by considering practices of sociability and commensality. We contend that closer attention to interactions between mainstream and LGBT consumers is key to understanding these urban changes. Mainstream-LGBT interactions encompass both congruent and competing practices, actualised in both physical encounters in consumer landscapes and discursive reputations of those spaces. These relations are increasingly important owing to the progressive integration of LGBT neighbourhoods into urban cultures and economies. Simultaneously, the materialisation of diverse LGBT landscapes in Sydney and Toronto has generated a relational geography of ‘traditional’ gay villages and ‘emergent’ queer-friendly neighbourhoods. We argue that practices and spaces of leisure-based consumption are emerging in different forms across these neighbourhoods and between Sydney and Toronto. To illustrate this, we deploy a discourse analysis of mainstream newspaper articles on LGBT neighbourhoods over 2004–2014, supplemented by relevant LGBT press releases in Toronto, focusing on the use, meaning and social significance of leisure-based consumption sites – clubs, bars, cafés, restaurants. We find the balance of daytime/night-time leisure spaces, which have both social and material affordances, is a key discriminator across the neighbourhoods, both within and between the cities. Daytime consumer landscapes are more often framed as sociable and inclusive within the media, while night-time landscapes are perceived as divisive.