San Francisco's Castro district: from gay liberation to tourist destination

In the early 1970s, San Francisco's Castro district transformed from an economically depressed Irish-Catholic neighbourhood into a politicized gay neighbourhood. The history of this transformation overlaps significantly with the production of a gay-spending zone in the same district. A behind-the-scenes organization, the Golden Gate Business Association, played an important role in this transformation. Founded in 1974, this organization sought to create a gay business community that had the power to influence local politics, and it saw gay tourism as central to that goal. An examination of San Francisco's Castro district illustrates the role tourist imaginaries have played as post-industrial urban economies yield to neoliberal forces via the consolidation of cultural capital.