This only looks at gay couples, and I wonder what the effects of same sex domestic partnerships, and now same sex marriage have had on the psyche of gay couples. Knowing now, unlike before, that they have the same legal rights bestowed upon them in the event of a breakup, divorce, or death as heterosexual couples may have lead to an increase in willingness to invest in property in Seattle's more affordable neighborhoods (relatively speaking, of course).

This says absolutely nothing about single gay people, who I would imagine remain in larger numbers on the hill. There's more nightlife, more opportunity to meet a partner, and more permissive attitudes. Once they partner up, just like with young straight couples, they leave the singles-core that is Capitol Hill and settle down in another neighborhood.

I could be wrong, but I don't think CH is getting any less gay. I simply think it's losing it's gay couples to the other neighborhoods, and they're being replaced by single people. The gentleman they interviewed is in his 40s now and married his husband and they'd been there 20 years. Moving from CH isn't gay flight, it's couples settling down.

Single gays don't count, I guess.

This is, by the by, a national phenomenon.

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140731/…

I visited Yakima in June, and at the local Starbucks there was at least one, if not several, gay couples waiting in line.

This phenomena - gays and lesbians tending to be less concentrated in "gayborhoods" in major urban areas - is happening all over the country. It's a direct consequence of the growing acceptance and equality in (some parts of) the US. The only thing that unites gay people is a shared experience of oppression. As that oppression lessens, it becomes less important for us to band together in gayborhoods for protection.

And Capitol Hill is a place where coupled same sex couples are more likely to cohabitate while remaining "single" on paper. Very questionable.

@5 so not only do you not recognize Yakima isn't a neighborhood in Seattle, you know if people are gay by looking at them. Such observational powers.

You'd think that acceptance and being able to live fully in any neighborhood would be good thing, no?

What makes you so sure the two fellows in that picture are gay?

A little bit of this, a little bit of that. A pot. A pan. A broom. A hat.

#3 The article is pretty clear on why it discusses gay couples:

"The Census Bureau does not ask people directly about their sexual orientation. It does, however, collect data on gay-couple households; researchers often use this data as an indicator of overall gay population."

@6 YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH ITS GENTRIFICATION WHEN PEOPLE MOVE FREELY AND AREN"T BANDED TOGETHER.

@10, given their level of bad taste I'd say straight or bi

Probably because its a lot safer to live in "straight neighborhoods" now than it was 10-12 years ago.

For couples with families, under the SPS assignment criteria, location matters a lot.

I just moved back to Seattle, and when I hang on the Hill (I actually moved to Mt. Baker, but have lived on CH three times), I know I am an asshole to my straight friends when I complain about how straight it feels. I srsly wish the straights could be banned from the Hill, or otherwise have to apply for passes to spend time here. I didn't realize how much I love a gay ghetto. And sadly, I'm not kidding.

I remember when I was a young gay single man in the 1980s. I had just gotten out of the military, where I could have been arrested and imprisoned for being gay (not just discharged). Back then, at the dawn of the AIDS epidemic, the ascendancy of the religious right in national politics, the limited civil rights, and the constant attack on what civil rights we had, all made me feel very unwelcome by society in general. I lived on Capitol Hill not because I felt unsafe, but because it was the only part of the world where I didn't feel oppressed on a daily basis. It was really, really important to my identity and sense of self worth to live in a gayborhood.

But now... not so much. I feel perfectly at ease pretty much anywhere in the city. I live in a residential neighborhood. All our neighbors know we're gay, and many of them wished us well when we got married last year. I think we're the only gay couple on the block, but we feel very welcome here.

Part of this is just aging and settling down with a husband. But part of it is the change in social attitudes and the laws. I'm pretty sure that if I'd been in my 50s with a long-term partner back in the 1980s, I'd still probably have wanted to stay on Capitol Hill. In that era, I would still have wanted the gayborhood aura, even as an older gay couple.

So all in all, I'd say that this statistic is a good thing.

@17 you have some problems you need to figure out.

OK, so they're not counting single people. But regarding couples:

(a) Increasing social acceptance has made it safer, both physically and socially, for gay people to live in "straight" neighborhoods;

(b) Increasing social acceptance has made it safer, both physically and socially, for straight people to live in "gay" neighborhoods.

there wasn't a place for anyone to live on the Hill 12 years ago... with residential development focused around all these areas that have seen an increase in same sex couples, people moved off the Hill. Within the past 5 years on the Hill, extreme development cant combat with the fact that marriage equality and the main streaming and acceptance of the LGBTI community no longer makes it necessary for us to live within a few blocks of each other.

@18, my experience was close to yours in the more apartment-y parts of the Hill around that time too. Single or coupled, if you were on the Hill you could feel a bit bolder, a bit more protected.

As for the quieter leafier bits of the Hill, even as a wee lad growing up on 23rd E in the early 70s we had a staid gay couple up the block, and a gay couple wound up the buyers of our house. They lived there, what, forty years? Until last year they moved to Bellevue. Now today there are many gay couples on that part of the Hill, of course, but the millionaire kind only - nobody else can afford it any more.

Married rich people move to Wallingford, Maple Leaf .. How is this news?

@13: gay men put the "gent" in "gentrification" and always have. The first gays to arrive are typically looking for some down-at-the-heels place where they can be left alone to build a gay-friendly enclave. Once it gets a critical mass of queers, a reputation for hipness spreads, wealthier straights follow, and rents start skyrocketing. This pushes the gays on to colonize the next gayborhood.

It will be interesting to see if this dynamic changes as homophobia abates.

@25, mostly I ignore you, but that is really an asshole comment.

It isn't about being rich, you privileged cretin. It is about the lessening of social stigma and a reduction in the need to ghettoize ourselves.

@26 in theory that's what would happen, but in reality that's not the case... the recolonization part, I mean. Capitol Hill has been the gayberhood forever, and even with skyrocketing rents, the poorer gays aren't recolonizing a new neighborhood- rather, they're living on the fringes of Capitol Hill in Beacon Hill, First Hill, CD, and ID. Really until a concentrated gay nightlife area pops up elsewhere, that will always be the case.

My gripe with the overall dissolution of the gayberhood isn't that we're gaining acceptance and moving away; it's that Capitol Hill is perceived to be a trendy neighborhood overall, and with that reputation has come an influx of Amazon tech bros with money that have jacked up rents and turned Capitol Hill into the new Belltown... as anyone who has walked down Pike/Pine on a weekend night at midnight can attest.

Capitol Hill as a 'gayborhood' has not really been gay for many more than 12 years. For sure Broadway hasn't been gay for a long time. 15th Ave E is much more of a gay destinationl

I like this idea that Capitol Hill is the only part of town where you can find lots and lots of single gay people in bars in the evening.

To believe that's true, you'd have to live on Capitol Hill and almost never venture into any other part of the city.

@30. Really? 15th?

It's been said before but bares repeating: this entire article is predicated on a statistic that is ONLY counting couples. Single people are not counted in the census. We don't matter. I have no doubt that the gayborhood is a little less Gay than in years past, but statistically shutting out singles just means the journalism is based on bad data.