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A long piece in City Journal about gentrification in Bed Stuy travels some well-worn ground that will be familiar to readers of this blog and long-time residents of Bed Stuy but perhaps news to outsiders. In a nutshell, the point of the piece is that Bed Stuy gentrified before whites arrived, and now houses cost $1,500,000 but shootings are still common. The story ends by wondering if gentrification will reverse itself and cites the case of a recent African American arrival who decamped to Kensington with his family.

“We were paying the rent of an upper-echelon neighborhood but had none of the security,” said the high school teacher.

One interesting fact the story uncovered: The much-touted 663 percent increase in the white population between 2000 and 2010 was actually due mostly to Hasids on the fringes of South Williamsburg, not hipsters or yuppies.

The story also quotes Bloomberg in the aftermath of a shooting that paralyzed an 11-year-old girl: “You have a right to live in Bed-Stuy and not have bullets whiz past your head.” That’s a nice sound bite, but we noticed that when a shooting occurred near Carroll Park, the police set up shop there; when the same thing happened in front of Saratoga Park, the police said there was no need for any extra police presence.

Meanwhile, the Real Deal looked into the details of who’s buying in Bed Stuy and found that 73 percent of sales of houses under $550,000 went to investors. “It’s tough out there for a Brooklyn buyer looking to land a modestly priced townhouse,” said the story. “But in the gentrifying area of Bedford-Stuyvesant, private buyers face even stiffer competition than elsewhere in the market for homes and small multi-family properties.” Flippers have been buying wrecks in all-cash deals for a long time, of course, but now the market is more competitive because the potential returns are higher than during the bust. An interesting tidbit: The story said that sometimes the price on the books isn’t the real price because buyers sometimes pay additional cash under the table to avoid tax.

Where do you see prices — and gentrification — in Bed Stuy heading next?

Bed-Stuy’s (Unfinished) Revival [City Journal]
Investors Are Behind 73 Percent of Bed-Stuy’s Cheaper Home Sales [TRD]
All Cash Investors Beating Buyers of Townhouses in Brooklyn [Brownstoner]


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I’m of Puerto Rican descent and I was born and raised in bed stuy. I want nothing more than for all this gentrification to disappear and for the neighborhood to be beautified and fixed up for it’s long time residents. Call me racist if you want but I just can’t get over the fact that my neighborhood and its people weren’t worth a damn to be fixed up until whites with money became interested in it. Fuck these white developers and fuck our white city and state politicians for fucking us over like this. I’m now newly separated and living in a cramped little room with 2 children in a relatives apartment because no one will rent to a single mother with kids who doesn’t take home a shit load of money and doesn’t have a perfect credit score. And affordable housing? Well there isn’t enough and it is not easy to obtain. I KNOW this is the way many long term residents feel and we are as powerless as “the south side” (Williamsburg) was against this thing. I’m a real victim of bed stuy gentrification and it’s fuckin scary…..

  2. I mean they had the ability to move where (and when) they pleased. I mean they had options. If you look at the development of city’s over time from an urban economics perspective, the “inner-ring” suburbs and “outer-ring” suburbs, you needed to have means to build a house from the ground up and move on. Even if it was viewed negatively, it happened. And it’s effects were real. I don’t think poor people were getting up and building homes in suburbs that had regulations like minimum lot sizes and certain rules put in place to keep certain people out.
    We may have different definitions of gentrification, or you may just be viewing the surface – it’s just about money – but those economic factors have social consequences not measured by a dollar amount. Whether you believe it should be about race and displacement I guess is ok when you are not on the receiving end of it. I guess it all depends where you stand. And honestly, you can feel however you want, but I don’t think I am telling you to feel bad. But at the same time, while you reserve the right not feel bad, you should not be excoriating a community that wishes to preserve itself just because you think you will “lose out” (zero-sum) in some way. Why should they feel bad about caring about their community?
    Lastly, on your last point, the readership of “Our Time” magazine is geared towards a particular readership. Actually, I’m not quite sure what you are offended by?

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