The light side of urban planning: Queer space in Beersheba between displacement and recognition

How can the ‘dark side’ of urban policy and planning be transformed into a ‘light side?’ How can displaceability and exclusion of an urban minority be reversed? How can marginalized groups enter the mainstream and achieve recognition, security and a stake in urban resources? The critical literature on the ‘dark side’ of planning rarely deals with the transformation from oppression to justice for excluded groups. The story of queer (LGBTQ+) space in Beersheba, Israel, which illustrates such a process, is analyzed here through the struggle to organize a gay parade and be allocated municipal assets for community use. The paper traces the transformation of the relationships between the community, the mayor and the City Council. The analysis shows how urban citizenship became a site of struggle constructed “from below,” coupled with the ability to mobilize support from other cities and political pragmatism. In order to locate this struggle in a broader context, the LGBTQ+ struggle is compared to that of another minority, Beersheba’s Bedouin-Arab community. The latter’s plight shows that while the LGBTQ+ commrecognition and moving towards the ‘light side,’ the Arab community was experiencing the ‘dark side,’ with increasing urban oppression and displacement. The study thus shows how a liberal, gay struggle may also be used to “pinkwash” on-going displacement of other communities in the urban periphery.