In the past two decades gay neighbourhoods have become familiar parts of the urban landscape. Although these aieas may include lesbians, gay men dominate their distinct subcultures, their businesses and their residences, their street life and their political activities. In 7he city and the grussroots (1983) Manuel Castells argues that the predominance of gay men in the creation of distinctly homosexual urban neighbourhoods reflects a profound gender difference. In relationship to space, gay men and lesbians, he says, behave first and foremost as men and women. Men seek to dominate space, while women attach more importance to networks and relationships, rarely having territorial aspirations: 'Lesbians, unlike gay men, tend not to concentrate in a given territory, but establish social and interpersonal networks.' Gay men require a physical space in order to conduct a liberation struggle, while lesbians are 'placeless' and 'tend to create their own rich, inner world' (1983: 140).Lesbians are also politically different from gay men, according to Castells. They do not acquire a geographical basis for urban political objectives, because they create a political relationship 'with higher, societal levels'. Lesbians 'are far more radical in their struggle . . . [and] more concerned with the revolution of values than with the control of institutional power' (1983: 140).Castells's analysis makes several assumptions that we question. First, is it true that lesbians do not concentrate in a given territory? Second, does the absence of a publicly identifiable lesbian neighbourhood reflect gender differences in interests, needs and values, or differences in resources available to gay men and lesbians? Third, do differences in the political orientation of politically active gay men and lesbians reflect gender differences in relationship to space or differences in political alliances, specifically the involvement of lesbians in feminist politics that include straight women?The literature on differences between gay men and lesbians in relation to urban space is generally ambiguous about the existence of lesbian spatial concentrations. In support of his argument, Castells cites Deborah Wolf's study of the lesbian community in San Francisco, which, according to Wolf, 'is not a traditional community in the sense that it has geographical boundaries' (Wolf, 1980: 72). However. Wolf also noted that lesbians did tend to live in particular parts of town, and that 'These areas bound each other and have in common a quality of neighbourhood life'. Wolf pointed out that since lesbians tend to be poor they live in older, ethnically mixed working-class areas, in low-rent * We should like to thank the lesbian organizations who allowed us to find a way to use their mailing lists while maintaining confidentiality of their membership. Without their help, this study could not have been conducted. We should also like to thank Mickey Lauria, Lawrence Knopp and this journal's reviewer for their comments and Chris Land for research assistance.
In November 2000, Oregon voters adopted Measure 7, the nation's most absolute definition of a regulatory "taking" and the compensation required for any and all loss of potential property value because of state or local regulations. Although the Oregon Supreme Court later invalidated Measure 7 on technical grounds, it is important to understand the origins and meaning of this drastic action. This article describes the proplanning consensus that has dominated Oregon since the 1970s, examines the Measure 7 campaign and its political consequences, and analyzes the emerging tensions within the Portland metropolitan area and across the state that led to this grassroots counterrevolution.We conclude that Measure 7 does not signal the end of Oregon's land use planning system, but that it is likely to force a rebalancing of the regulatory system to address the real hardships that regulations governing land development can impose.
The first major piece of national transit legislation was enacted in 1964. By 1969 the Urban Mass Transportation Administration was the subject of a highly critical analysis by staff investigators for a Congressional Appropriations Committee, and in the early 1970s industry analysts sharply critiqued the rationality of urban transit policy in general. In 1981 the Comptroller General of the U.S. reported to Congress that the demand for transit subsidies was approaching crisis proportions. The U.S. government has come to play a greater role in the transit industry than do most European counterparts, provides more passenger subsidy per ride than any other country, and, though transit is everywhere subsidized, the U.S. federal government subsidizes a greater share of industry costs than most other national governments. This article examines the circumstances under which this particular industry-government relationship developed. As part of this industrial policy discussion, the article also looks at the culture of discourse that was present during the early intervention period and that has been characteristic of the transit policy community since that time.
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