1.

The Boom needs to die already to gays in Orange County can begin to build a real community center in place where it's more economically rational. The current cover story of the Orange County Blade examines this issue and suggests downtown Santa Ana. The gay OC scene is tragic right now but I really believe something good will create something good in the years to come and I don’t believe desperately hanging onto the Boom will be a part of it. There are simply too many gay people in OC for change not to occur.

2.

Ew, Santa Ana? Please, the gays are going to gravitate towards the fabulous end of things, and Laguna fits the bill where downtown Santa Ana most definitely does not.

Thank god I live in LA!

3.

OK I'm back from lunch and now that my brain has food I was able to proof my previous brain fart, err I mean comment which shall now read:

The Boom needs to die already so gays in Orange County can get over Laguna begin to build a real community center in place where it's more economically rational. The current cover story of the Orange County Blade examines this issue and offers the suggestion of downtown Santa Ana. The OC gay scene is tragic right now but I really believe from all this pain will rise something good in years to come. I don’t believe desperately hanging onto the Boom will help the cause. There are simply too many gay people in OC for the eventual formation of a new gay district not to occur.

4.

I have a somewhat related question. Where are the pioneering homosexuals in Los Angeles moving to these days? My hairdresser says Boyle Heights is the next neigborhood to buy in and that is what he is planning on doing. He made a killing buying a house in Echo Park six years ago so I tend to trust him, but it takes more than one gay to turn a neighborhood around and Boyle Heights sure does look sketchy to me.

5.

Damn, dude, if Boyle Heights is the next gay hotspot, South Central isn't far off.

6.

The gays have been buying in both Boyle Heights and South LA for years, but it just has never been acknowledged.
Who redeveloped the West Adams district? Many have been buying in Leimert Park and Baldwin Hills, Crenshaw, etc. Yes, the safer and architecturally interesting parts of South LA yet still South LA.
Glassell and Cypress Park and Atwater and Mt. Washington and Boyle Hts. all have sizeable gay population bases, yet that notoriety is seldom known unless you live there or have friends that do.

7.

I should have been more specific--I was talking about straight-up old-school South Central, in the Main-Washington-Alameda-Slauson box. It's an area that is now about 95% Latino and has majority-Latino since the '70s.

Now that I think of it, it probably was mostly gays who started buying into West Adams in the '80s. I've seen a number of Craigslist ads from self-identified gay landlords looking to rent rooms or back houses/garage apartments to USC students. Still, West Adams is hardly "redeveloped." It may be in an HPOZ and there may be a bunch of nicely restored houses, but it's a long-ass way from gentrification.

I'm surprised that gays are buying into heavily black areas, though. I've heard and read that gay-led gentrification in previously black areas of Atlanta, D.C., and Baltimore has caused serious social tensions. (You may have heard a little about the slight homophobia problem in much of the African-American community.) Perhaps Leimert, being the "black Greenwich Village," is a little more accepting.

FWIW, I knew about the gays in Atwater, Glassell, and Cypress; they've been buying there, and to an extent in Highland Park, because they're getting priced out of Silver Lake and Echo Park, and even Eagle Rock is too expensive nowadays.

Here's a question: who goes into El Sereno first--the gays, or the Chinese?