Yasss in my Backyard: Gay Planners and the Urban “Thirstscape”

Keywords: queer, desire, urban theory, otherness, planning
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the role of gay men’s desire in urban landscapes by theorizing the city as a “thirstscape.” I draw on debates in queer psychoanalytic theory that seek to complicate the assumed relationships within mainstream psychoanalytic thought between heterosexuality as desire for otherness on the one hand, and the narcissism of homosexual desire on the other. I draw on a series of interview with self-identified gay, bisexual, or queer urban planners and or urbanist activists who may or may not identify with the ideology of “YIMBYism” (Yes In My Backyard) which, in North America, broadly seeks to increase and densify the supply of housing in American cities by unleashing market forces. There have been multiple studies by queer planners (eg Doan 2015) on how to study and create urban spaces to enhance queer life, but to date no study has been conducted on the motivations and goals of gay and other LGBTQ-identified planners and urban activists themselves and the online activist community that has formed via Twitter. Here I consider the constitutive role of queer desire, both in and for the city, and as both affirming and challenging the gender binary, and focus on the agenda of urban densification, as a platform for an enhanced set of opportunities to interact with strangers, amongst queer urban planning professionals who play a key role in shaping discourses about, as well as the material form of, the city for all desiring subjects.