This led to rapidly increasing real estate prices in the 2000s, and businesses also started to change to cater to this more affluent (and less gay-oriented, if still gay-friendly) population. Townhome developers began building in the neighborhood.
By the late 1990s however, interest in urban living began to increase, and Montrose had enough remaining attractive homes that more affluent 'urban pioneers' became interested in moving there. The Montrose gay community faced challenges in the mid-late 1980s with AIDS and the general decline of the neighborhood, which by the early 1990s was getting a reputation as much for being sketchy and even dangerous as it was gay-friendly.
It was during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s period that Montrose became an identifiably 'gay neighborhood.' Enough critical mass was created in the neighborhood to sustain an ecosystem of gay-oriented and gay-friendly businesses. cities during that era, gays flocked there to escape oppression and find community that was lacking in suburbs and small towns. Word got out that gay folk could be more comfortable 'being themselves' out in public, and just like happened in a number of U.S. Montrose was an old inner-city neighborhood that was (a) tolerant and (b) cheap. It started back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when bohemians, artists and hippies also moved there.
Up until 10-15 years ago Montrose was more visibly gay-oriented.