Florida, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, said members of the creative class consider recreation, culture and ethnic diversity, including a large population of gays and lesbians, as central to where they live. Places like New York, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle have those qualities. Places like Spokane generally do not.

After Florida spoke here a couple of years ago, Spokane civic leaders embraced many of his ideas. They have pushed hard to create a university district and several arts districts near downtown.

Tom Reese, an economic development officer for Spokane, said city government is not exactly pushing the notion of a gay district, but doesn’t oppose it either.

“It is our desire to create an environment where diversity and different interests and lifestyles of all types can flourish,” Reese said.

No public funds will be used to create the district, which is dependent on developers, Aspen said. No location has been announced.

With about 200,000 residents, the city has little history of gay activism, other than an effort a few years ago that added gays and lesbians as a protected class to its human rights ordinance.

Spokane – which in trendy Seattle is shorthand for tragically unhip – has long been dominated by conservative politics that stem from its history as a mining and farming center. But it also has a large core of Democrats who push for social justice, and libertarians who share the West’s live-and-let-live philosophy.

Most of all, the city identifies itself as a good place to raise a family. A gay district clashes with that image, opponents contend.

“We are a family-friendly, traditional-values community,” said former Mayor John Talbott.

Opponents fear a gay district will attract sexual predators who prey on gays, plus lead to increased crime, drug use and other social ills, Walton Mize, bishop of the Christ Holy Sanctified Church, said.

“Most people don’t know about the underbelly of it,” Mize said. “It’s a culture based upon sex.”

Aspen rejected the notion that a gay district will bring social problems to Spokane.

“I can’t see why they think they will have more of that than is already here,” Aspen said.

Spokane already has a gay newspaper, Stonewall News Northwest, and some businesses that cater to gay residents. It has had an openly gay member of the city council.