I felt that this week’s reading was a bit lacking in focus. The chapter opens with a quote which does a wonderful job of creating a tone of crime, chaos, panic, and danger. However, the writing that follows seems to only barely relate to that theme. Hanhardt fluctuates between discussion of riots, racial segregation and gentrification, and gay communities without really providing what feel like strong connections between the themes. What’s worse, none of her themes seem to serve any overarching informative goal – the chapter seems to lack a purpose.

The real shame is that this weeks reading seems to be covering a particularly unique subject. While we have already spent a fair deal of time discussing racial tensions and how they relate to financial and housing crises, I believe this is the first time that discussion of LGBT communities and “The Gay Index” has come up in class. The Gay Index was a completely new concept to me, and I found it genuinely interesting to discover that there were such important correlations between the presence of gay communities and various advancements in tech and business.