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That's the gentrification pattern repeated time and again -- gay men move in to run-down neighborhoods first, because a household of nothing but young men is less afraid of being mugged, and a household without kids isn't deterred by bad schools. Then come the artists (considerable overlap with the gay men), who need a lot of space and don't have a lot of money.

Once you have a neighborhood full of artists, you have all the ingredients of a trendy spot. So the bars and funky little shops move in. Before long, the neighborhood becomes a magnet for straight singles and young couples. As property values go up, families and chain stores start to take an interest. After a while, the artists and funky little shops either ride the rising tide or can't afford the rent any more, and move on to start the process over.

It's been most pronounced in NYC, where that pattern was followed in Greenwich (and later the East) Village, SoHo, Chelsea, TriBeCa, and is in progress in the meat-packing district and starting in Alphabet City. In Atlanta, I've seen it in Virginia-Highlands, Poncey-Highlands, Grant Park, Inman Park, and most recently Cabbagetown and Kirkwood. I'm sure other cities have similar stories, but I don't know them.

You nailed it. Last year, I found huge studio space I could afford on the near-downtown southside of Indianapolis, in a (barely) converted restaurant by Garfield Park--I have a hand-dryer in my bathroom, if that gives you an idea. Since I'm also a commercial artist, I work in-studio all day and love the place. Sure, the neighborhood is rundown and definitely a chancy place to walk around at night but lately I've been noticing signs of gentrification going on: new cars in grocery store parking lots, fewer pickup trucks on blocks in the driveways, the appearance of coffee shops where seedy dive taverns once stood. My landlord's been making noises about raising the rent. I've been making noises about moving out if he does.

I don't see any of this as ominous, just expensive.

Petworth and U Street in D.C., in addition to the longtime gay enclave Dupont Circle.

Street crime is high in U Street because the gentrification has swung all the way over to trendy college kids and there's a lot of cash walking around on weekends. Petworth is a different story. The first time I visited my friend there after she and her fiance bought a house, I wanted to walk and talk around the neighborhood. She said it wasn't a great idea and I should carry her stickball bat because there was a pit bull loose that day. Yikes. But that was five years ago and it's better now, though still pretty rough.

I was looking to buy a house last summer and learned a lot about how neighborhoods move up and down. There really are worse things than having gays (and, less specifically, artists) terraform a block and move up property values, or at least hipness and desirability. I would have bought in one of those neighborhoods but it was too far from my job.