Gay & Lesbian Atlas (Paperback)

by Gary J. Gates (Author), Jason Ost (Author), Elizabeth Birch (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"...[A] must read for anyone, straight or gay, who wants to understand an increasingly important...aspect of American society." -- Richard Florida, author, The Rise of the Creative Class

"In the welter of emotions generated by debate on GLBT issues, facts are too often ignored." -- U.S. Congressman Barney Frank

"The Gay and Lesbian Atlas is a timely and powerful tool..." -- Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin

"Two words for this book--at last!." -- Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institution, author of Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America

Product Description
While the words "we are everywhere" can be frequently heard at gay and lesbian political events, The Gay and Lesbian Atlas provides the first empirical confirmation of this rallying cry. Drawing on the most recent data from the U.S. Census, this groundbreaking work offers a detailed geographic and demographic portrait of gay and lesbian families in all 50 states plus the top 25 U.S. metropolitan areas. These results, presented in more than 250 full-color maps and charts, will both confirm and challenge anecdotal information about the spatial distribution and demographic characteristics of this community. It is probably no surprise that San Francisco, Key West, and western Massachusetts all host large gay and lesbian populations, but it might surprise some that Houston, Texas, contains one of the ten "gayest" neighborhoods in the country, or that Alaska and New Mexico have high concentrations of gay and lesbian couples in their senior populations. The Atlas is a unique and important resource for the political and public policy communities, public health officials, social scientists, and anyone interested in gay and lesbian issues.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Urban Institute Press (May 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877667217
• ISBN-13: 978-0877667216
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #724,789 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As comprehensive as it is beautiful..., June 4, 2004

By A Customer

This atlas is clearly the gold standard in gay and lesbian demographics. The authors have used the most concrete data available to create one of the most comprehensive and user-friendly books available on the topic. The analysis and methodology is surprisingly readable. The maps are vivid and very easy to follow. I've left the book on my coffee table and everyone one of my friends has picked it up. I thoroughly enjoy watching them thumb through their home states and hearing them exclaim "There are gay people there?" This atlas is a useful tool for marketers, service providers, policy makers, and anyone looking to know more about their gay and lesbian neighbors.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The book about gay demographics!, June 21, 2004

By	"chris86315" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews

This book makes it very easy to find information about where we live in the united states and presents it in such a way that arguments can now be backed up with factual data taken from the US census. It is easy to read and very informative. A must have for anyone interested in gay studies.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fascinating, yet frustrating, December 9, 2005

By	William Jesdale "queer scientist & geographer" (Providence, RI) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Gary Gates and Jason Ost have presented a carefully crafted volume, filled with gist for tremendous insights. Their methodology is clearly explained, and they have done an admirable job of trying to portray cartographic imagery of the gay and lesbian population of the United States.

This volume certainly belongs in every public and school library in the country.

And yet, I experienced a certain amount of frustration while poring over the state-by-state and city-by-city maps portrayed in this volume. This frustration does not stem from the admirable work of the authors, but rather from three sources largely beyond their control.

First among these sources of frustration is that the census data collected on same sex coupling, enticing as it is, leaves much to be desired. The census methodology makes the imputation of lesbian and gay populations difficult, at best. The only enumeration is of co-habiting "unmarried" partners of like gender. Left out are couples where neither is the 'head of household', couples not living in the same residence, or who are living in group quarters (such as housing complexes, nursing homes, and correctional facilities). Also left out are single gay & lesbian people, those who do not declare their relationship as an "unmarried partnership", and those who are currently cohabiting with a partner of dissimilar gender, or are in some other form of less traditional relationship status.
The limitation of our knowledge base to cohabiting couples of similar gender is frustrating when trying to imagine the exhuberant diversity of our communities as displayed across geographic space.

My second frustration stems from the difficulty in displaying information that is highly dependent on population density. In the maps these authors portray, the vast majority of the country looks as though there is a paucity of gay and lesbian couples. This is chiefly due to the fact that rural settings take up a lot of "space" on the map, while urban clusters are often barely visible, let alone the small-area variation in the prevalence of couples across the urban landscape.
The authors have tried to overcome this difficulty somewhat by displaying blow-ups of various cities (such as San Francisco, Houston, Boston, etc.), but often these maps of cities are so de-contextualized from their surroundings that it is difficult to visualize the residential patterns of similar gender couples. For example, Boston is displayed without the integrally linked cities of Cambridge and Somerville that (at least anecdotally) contain a large proportion of Boston's gay and lesbian community.

My third frustration stems from the fact that the authors have presented only one measure of gay & lesbian residental patterns (to be fair, three measures: one for gays, one for lesbians, and one combined). This is a relative measure, which is a bit more difficult to interpret than an absolute measure, such as the proportion of similar gender couple-headed households, would have been, because the 'normal' reference for each state is different, making parts of rural North Dakota look as queer-friendly as Manhattan.
Furthermore the authors have limited themselves to a single gay/lesbian index, presumably because of the prohibitive cost of producing a volume with multiple indices. The drawback to this is that a variety of audiences will be interested in more than the relative concentration of lesbian and gay households to all households. The census, for instance, has elected to present data on same sex households as a proportion of all coupled households, rather than including single person households, or households in which the adults have no stated relationship. Other viewers may wish to consider only those households where the head is over a given age.

Much of these difficulties could be overcome by creating an accompanying website which would allow a reader/viewer to zoom in and out according to their own particular preferences, and to display the index of lesbian/gay residential density of greatest interest to them.

All in all, this volume is a tremendous effort and acheivement, hampered not by the authors' originality or effort, but by inescapable quirks of census data collection, and the ability of our minds to grapple with spatial information.

Bill Jesdale, Providence RI (by the way, the finest queer community in the country...)