Park Slope: Where Lesbians are King

Photo via Park Slope Lens

The Trulia Real Estate Blog has a feature for Pride Month wherein they look at the US Census data of percentage of same-sex couples in each zip code, and then correlate it to the square footage of real estate.  This is an important study because, as any Republican will tell you, gay people make only two meaningful contributions to society: (1) spending money on goods and services; and (2) improving straight-people's property values. That's the only reason New York passed marriage equality.

I only wish I were making that up.  Think gay marriage isn't making you richer?  Well, these Korean economists did a study in Columbus, Ohio (my hometown, in case anyone cares) and found that supporting marriage equality -- not even passing it, but just being okay with it -- makes the value of homes go up.  
The economics professors, who studied home values in 2000 in and around Columbus, Ohio, concluded that an increase in the number of same-sex couples by one in 1,000 households is associated with a 1.1 percent price premium in enclaves that backed gay marriage. The same influx in areas that didn’t support same-sex marriage was linked to a 1 percent discount.

That is some fucked-up shit.  What the hell are the Koreans up to?  It used to be cloning wooley mammoths, and now they're onto gay people in Ohio.  I, for one, don't care for it.  Anyway, let's worry about the Koreans some other time and get back to the Trulia study.  When they looked at New York City, the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of gay men were all in Manhattan.  Brooklyn Heights was the Brooklyn neighborhood with the highest gay population, where real estate was $727 per square foot.

When it comes to Lesbians, however, Brooklyn is king. The New York City neighborhood with the highest concentration of gay girls was (wait for it...wait for it...) Park Slope!   Two and three on the list were  Boerum Hill (they used the 11217 zip code, so that arguably includes part of Park Slope) and Prospect Heights.  

The crazy thing about this study is that, according to Trulia, property values in Park Slope are higher than any of the top ten gay boy neighborhoods, except the Castro in San Francisco.  And it's the same for the lesbian gayborhoods -- only the Castro had a higher price per square foot.  That's a good thing.  Not only because it means that Park Slope Lesbians are among the classiest dykes around, but also for purposes of safety.

When Mitt Romney gets elected, he's going to start sending box cars for all the gays, but because the housing market's in a slump, he'd be a fool to start with those of us who are propping up the real estate market.  At $664 per square foot, you're safe, Park Slope Gay People.  On the other hand, if you've got any friends in Pleasant Ridge, Michigan, (which is one of the top ten zip codes in the country for gay men, apparently), tell them to start landscaping, because at $107 per square foot, I'd say that the gays of suburban Detroit are probably going to be the first to go.