40 or 30 years ago the community was a big part of our lives, friends, neighborhood, gentrification, etc. Many folks weren't just accepted back home and had to flee to a big city to create a life of their own. As gay acceptance and developed, we started to create our own community with friends who share our stats specially age and looks. Folks nowadays don't need to live in the gayborhood to be safe or be in the closet, they also have more straight friends and they're open to them too.
Unlike straight people gay men still have friends / hookups / fuckbuddies of different socio-economic background.