"Sustaining Difference during Gentrification: NYC & Berlin Since 2008" Dr. Jen Jack Gieseking Digital & Computational Studies Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA
 BUKA 2010-2011, HU im Berlin jgieseking.org @jgieseking Presentation from Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Bundeskanzler-Stipendium (BUKA) / German Chancellor Fellowship Kolloquium in Sankt-Petersburg, Russia. Do not cite, reprint, or quote this presentation without express permission of Dr. Jen Jack Gieseking.

1. Sustaining
Difference during
Gentrification:
NYC & Berlin
Since 2008
Dr. Jack Gieseking
Digital & Computational Studies
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, USA
BUKA 2010-2011, HU im Berlin
jgieseking.org || @jgieseking

2. Urban Geographies of
Sexualities: NYC & Berlin
• 1979 “ghettos” --> 1983
“neighborhoods”
• “Gays” and artists linked to
patterns of gentrification
• Intersection of culture, politics, and
economy in a territory
LesbianHerstoryArchives.org. 2012.
• Lesbians and queer women disappeared as “invisible”
• Women drink less, possess less capital and power, and are associated
with a narrative of fear in the city Castells (1983)
@jgieseking

3. 105000
100000
95000
90000
85000
80000
75000
US 70000
$13,392 +/- per couple type
65000
60000
Lesbian-Queer History by
1983
1985
1987
1989
1991
1993
1995
1997
1999
2001
2003
2005
the Numbers
2007
Couple'Male*
Male'
Couple'
Female*Male'
Couple'
Female*Female'
F(3) = 433; p > .001, R2 = .946
@jgieseking
US Median Annual Earnings by Type of Couple
Source: Hegewisch, et al. (2011), Institute for Research on Women

4. The Gay City
Today
@jgieseking
Jun, 2009 “Join the Rainbow Pilgrimage” NYC.gov

5. • Financialization: private
equity investors
increasing owning
rental housing portfolios
• 1990s locally owned
housing > global
portfolios in 2000s
Housing
Financialization
Mother Jones (2014)
@jgieseking

6. Fields & Uffer, Urban Studies
(2014):
• Deep parallels in
globalization of housing
market in NYC and Berlin
• Split between housing ($)
and home (experience) in
both cities
• Financialization heightened
inequality and often
worsened housing
conditions and well-being of
rental populations in both
cities
NYC/Berlin
Gentrification
Uberberlin 2011,
Vancouver Sun 2011,
Shark Properties 2010
@jgieseking

7. How did the creative class thesis make way for financialization?
And what is the future of the creative class under financialization?
@jgieseking

8. Research
Project
@jgieseking
Images: © Levine Roberts, Keith Haring, n/a, GO, gonyc.gov

9. NYC/Berlin Research
Project Methods
•47 NYC & 24 Berlin self-identified lesbians & queer women
with mental mapping components
•Archival research 25 years of publications in both cities, &
381 organizational records in NYC
•Participatory online focus group in NYC, future for both together
Alison Bechdel 1987
Staten Island
Manhattan
The Bronx
Queens
Brooklyn
@jgieseking

10. Mapping Lesbian-Queer
New York Desi’s Map Sally’s Map
@jgieseking

11. Color = Participant Year of Coming Out
Red = Cassie ’83 (Latina, middle class, from NYC)
Blue = Susan ’92 (white, middle class)
Green = Sally ’96 (white, upper-middle class)
Brown = Shawn ’98 (black, middle class, from NYC)
Purple = Holly ’03 (white, working-middle class)
Orange = Beth ’06 (white, working-middle class)
MANHATTAN
QUEENS
BROOKLYN
West
Village
East
Village
Park
Slope
Bed-Stuy
Flatbush
Central Park
Williamsburg
Chelsea
Composite Mental Map
@jgieseking

12. NYC
• Fragmented & fleeting spaces
• Gentrify and are gentrified for
over 3 decades
• Little ability to retain long-term,
mass property ownership (ex.
Park Slope)
Berlin Meets NYC
Berlin
• Fragmented but not fleeting
spaces
• Recently taken on large role in
gentrifying and being gentrified
• Losing ability to retain long-term,
mass property ownership
(Kreuzkölln)
[aus: NYC GO Magazine, 2009] [aus: http://www.morgenpost.de/, 2009]

13. Financialized Creative
Class of NYC/Berlin
Insights to Date
•Creative class gentrification
fed today’s financialization
•Financialization is newest
moment wave of gentrification
•Creative class becomes
redefined through
financialization, esp. women
•Disembodiment of home from
housing “stock” is site of
embodied intervention for
LGBTQ activism and research [aus: NYC GO Magazine, 2009]

14. Next Project:
Queer Public
Archives

15. Vielen Dank.
Special thanks to the
Alexander Humboldt Foundation,
Tatjana Nikitina, and my Humboldt Fellow colleagues.
Questions & comments:
@jgieseking
jgieseking.org
peopleplacespace.org
All papers available on jgieseking.org/publications or via email.