Penny Tration answers - "Why Northside? Is Northside our 'gay ghetto?'"

Okay – lets start with “I’m not a big fan of Northside in the most general of terms” and “I’m philosophically opposed to the term “ghetto’. “

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way… (wink)

Cincinnati has yet to coalesce enough of our gays into a section of the city to consider any of them a ghetto. Couple this with the fact that Northside seems to think it’s cooler than it is and we have a function of what some folks at the American Psycological Association call “Unskilled and Unaware” (http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf) .

People (and, I would argue, Communities) tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people (and communities of people) who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive abiltity (the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error) to realize it.

Northside presents itself in a false manner. This doesn’t appear to be malicious in any way – it’s just unaware that it truly isn’t urban and hip to those who are able to distinguish the differences between what is urban/hip and what is just unpleasant. There is a fine line between what is urban/trendy/hip and what is just raw. Northside is, and has remained, raw for so long that it’s reputation as and “up and coming area” is suspect. Though, the savvy gay is often in an area before its reputation has turned from “raw” to “up and coming” – Northside’s attempt at alteration has just gone on too long. Northside remains simply raw without any near-term possibility for conversion to anything more.

Okay – now I’ve beat Northside up a little because, as I previously stated, I’m not a fan. However, there are some great things in Northside:
• The Serpent
• Bronze
• The Yoga place whose name I can never remember
• The KFC/Taco Bell
• The NEW Bullfishes
• A Wig Store (my fav)
• A couple of tattoo Shops
• Taylor Jamison
• And plenty of other things I have yet to explore.

There’s also a park that we call home at least once a year for the pride parade and the GLBT Community Center calls Northside home as well.

So, Northside isn’t all bad, it’s just a bit under-qualified for the job. Maybe, in 10 or 15 more years it will have reached critical mass in gay-numbers and I’ll have to eat my words. For now, though, it is hardly “da-gay-ghetto”.

There’s my one Penny’s Worth (wink)

Smooches – pt

p.s. forgive my over/misuse of the quotation mark and inconsistency with its, it’s and it is. (and one last *wink* before I go)