The New York Observer devotes quite a lot of ink this week to the County of Kings. In addition to analyzing the borough’s laissez-faire relationship with its celebrity residents, the article notes that the borough has become many people’s first choice as opposed to just a cheaper alternative for those priced out of Manhattan:

Gentrification has finally achieved what cracks, gangs, graffiti, bankruptcy, budget busting, Giuliani, the smoking ban and global terrorism could not: It has rendered Manhattan utterly uninhabitable. These days, the Upper East Side and the Lower East Side have both become the forward positions of what can no longer be reasonably called the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. No point in dressing in rags and belting out lyrics from Rent, because every block of the East Village looks like frat row at the University of Michigan. Brooklyn presents itself as a happy medium between surviving in Manhattan and sequestering oneself in the suburbs, between continuing to live like a college kid and sniffing enough carbon monoxide in your garage to become a happy zombie. In Brooklyn, New Yorkers can rehearse their adulthood without committing to it; can play in their brownstones without feeling trapped inside of them. And Brooklyn is no longer Failure-ville. Even the celebrities—people who dreamed of making it long ago, who came to Manhattan to get famous—show proof of their success in Brooklyn. It is the dream.

Welcome to Schnooklyn [NY Observer]