Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Corresponding Author: John J. Immigrant-run sexually oriented massage parlors embody the intersection of important planning issues, including inequitable distribution of controversial land uses and economic functions of illicit businesses. In NYC, clustering occurred mostly in Manhattan and was negatively associated with household size. Local regulation did not appear to affect clustering.
Study findings hold lessons about both more effective regulation and enabling economic development in immigrant populations. Sexually oriented massage parlors, which primarily employ Asian immigrant women workers Bungay et al.
As such, studying how economic forces of customer demand and labor supply, and local regulation, relate to the spatial clustering of sexually oriented massage parlors provides a way for planners, scholars, and advocates to better understand some key planning issues. Filling the gap in our understanding of massage parlor clustering is vitally important as planners work not only to regulate and control unwanted and controversial land uses but also to create enabling environments for formalized economic development and growth, especially for immigrant populations.
The first two issues noted above center on the inequitable distribution of controversial land uses and the regional impacts of local level planning efforts to push out such uses. If local planners and other government agencies design regulations to direct the location of sexually oriented massage parlors, they should also consider how to avoid reproducing inequitable distribution of controversial land uses.
Technological innovations, such as the internet, have created conditions that promote dispersal of sexually oriented massage parlors and other sexually oriented businesses beyond traditional red light districts Murphy and Venkatesh In a context already primed for dispersal, planning practices can have the unintended consequence of simply displacing sexually oriented massage parlors to neighboring communities. Research on the social ecology of sex-related businesses indicates that higher income and more socially organized communities have the political clout to prevent the siting of sex-related businesses and control the ways such businesses operate, ostensibly to mitigate negative secondary effects Edwards ; Weitzer Consequently, uninformed attempts at regulation may shunt unwanted uses to neighborhoods with higher levels of social disorganization and less political clout, leading to an inequitable concentration of unwanted uses in vulnerable lower income, minority and immigrant communities.
