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I ask because in almost every city I visit, it seems like women outnumber men by 2-1 in many "gentrifying" urban areas as far as being out in public alone (jogging, biking etc) or even in groups doing yoga in the park for example.
It could be a questionable area too and it's like they have no fear compared to their male companions.
Maybe the guys are just in their condos having a beer and just don't care to get out and exercise as much?
Or maybe it's just me noticing the attractive women and not seeing as many men?
It just seems like women are more likely to move into a city neighborhood and be outside in areas that many in the suburbs would consider dangerous more so than men and running with headphones seemingly oblivious to their surroundings for the most part.
I could have sworn the exact opposite. Seattle and SF, for instance, are well-known to be quite swarming with men (dating scene in Seattle is terrible from what I've heard because of that). Strangely enough, the gender ratio is nearly equal, but I suppose that doesn't reflect demographics living in the more urban districts.
Not from what one sees on this forum. Also, Denver is known as "Menver" due to the imbalance of males to females. I always thought that's because it's such a "techie" town.
IMHO, men tend to be more likely to be "first-wave gentrifiers" for at least two reasons.
1. Gay men tend to play a big role in gentrifying some neighborhoods. For whatever reason, lesbians don't seem to have the same urban focus that gay men do, and are less likely to congregate in distinct urban neighborhoods.
2. When it comes to homeowner-driven gentrification, first-wave gentrifiers often need to be willing to buy a house in disrepair and use "sweat equity" to restore it to habitable. Although more women are becoming comfortable with DIY projects, in my experience there's still relatively few willing to buy and restore a house all by themselves.
Things might invert a bit when you get out of the "gay man/artist/weirdo" phase of gentrification and into the final "yuppie" stage. Most cities have significantly higher populations of women than men these days, except for sun-belt cities which attract a high proportion of Latino immigrants. Still, my understanding is most of the studies which look at urban gender ratios do not account for age, and thus the higher proportion of women in many cities may just be due to an elderly female population.
In addition to eschaton's reasons, there's the safety issue: Single men are much less concerned about it than single women.
It's unclear whether it's more because single women are in more danger than single men. Or because single men tend not to be risk-averse (stuff happens to others).
Pioneer = "Where no upper middle class white person gone before" ?
Naah. Plenty of gentrifying neighborhoods were upper-middle class white neighborhoods 100 years ago. It's more a return to form than anything in many cases.
I could have sworn the exact opposite. Seattle and SF, for instance, are well-known to be quite swarming with men (dating scene in Seattle is terrible from what I've heard because of that). Strangely enough, the gender ratio is nearly equal, but I suppose that doesn't reflect demographics living in the more urban districts.
I would have assumed the opposite as well. The Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan have a female skew, but they're well past the "pioneer" stage [doesn't make sense at all call the Upper East Side a gentrifying neighborhood]. And they skew older, rather than the typical 20 something transplant-attracting neighborhood.
You are just seeing more women out running and doing yoga in the park. I run and usually see about 4:1 women to men anywhere I go running. However, most places anyone would just stumble into and see women doing yoga in the park have been gentrified years ago. "Urban pioneer" these days means places like inner city Baltimore or Detroit.
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