The Bourgeoisification of Ptown

The Sunday Styles section of the New York Times featured a story on the gentrification of Provincetown and the battle between the haves and the have-nots. With housing prices sky-rocketing and many hotels and businesses closing to be made into condos, the transient population of Provincetown, its artists and bohemian free spirits, are finding it hard to keep up.

Film director John Waters is interviewed in the piece and boils the problem down to a larger shift in American culture. “We live in a much less bohemian time,” He states. “Outsider is such a tired word. There’s no great youth movement happening; there are no hippies today, no punk rockers. The world has changed. Some gay people are straighter than my parents.”

Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan is also interviewed in the story calling the changes in Ptown part of the “bourgeoisification of the gay world.” Apparently, the wharf where Mr. Sullivan lives was once a “seedy sex-and-drugs party spot.” We bet he misses the old neighborhood.