Is Paris still burning? Rethinking Boystown, returning to the ballroom

Inclusion is a keyword in contemporary urban design. But what does it truly mean, and for whom? This contribution offers a critical reading of “inclusive urbanism” by contrasting two radically different modes of queer spatiality: on one side, the institutionalization of Boystown (now Northalsted) in Chicago; on the other, the emergence of ballroom culture in 1970s–80s New York, born out of marginalization and survival. Boystown was the first American neighborhood officially recognized as a “gay village,” marked by symbolic urban interventions such as rainbow pylons and memorials. However, this visibility ended up crystallizing a narrow image of LGBTQ+ identity: white, male, cisgender, bourgeois. Trans, Black, Latinx and working-class voices remained on the periphery, prompting a 2020 campaign to abandon the name “Boystown” altogether. In sharp contrast, ballroom culture arose in informal, leftover or temporarily occupied spaces—basements, gyms, clubs. Balls were not mere performances but acts of spatial resistance and affirmation. Paris Is Burning, the 1990 documentary by Jennie Livingston, vividly captured the spirit of these spaces and the urgency of the identities they hosted—offering not only a record, but a legacy. Houses, functioning as chosen families, operated as micro-architectures of care, support, and survival. Without formal recognition, these communities created flexible, porous, welcoming environments. What architecture can learn from this is profound. Ballrooms do not offer a model to replicate, but a way of thinking space as relation, threshold, transformation. While institutional inclusion often translates into branding and representational fixity, ballroom spatiality is defined by instability, incompleteness, and potential. It invites us not to design for inclusion, but to design for possibility—for openness, care, and emergence.