Jeffries v. Broker on Neighborhood Names
Today The Brooklyn Paper ran an op-ed from Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries about why he’s introducing a bill to formalize the process of naming neighborhoods as well as one from a Rapid Realty broker named Lanishia Goodwin about why she supports new neighborhood handles. From Jeffries’ piece: “The consequences of realtors providing misleading information are broad….
Today The Brooklyn Paper ran an op-ed from Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries about why he’s introducing a bill to formalize the process of naming neighborhoods as well as one from a Rapid Realty broker named Lanishia Goodwin about why she supports new neighborhood handles. From Jeffries’ piece: “The consequences of realtors providing misleading information are broad. Working families are pushed out of rebranded neighborhoods as housing prices soar. Newer residents pay more to rent or buy, largely as a result of the deceptive marketing. This is why I plan to introduce the Neighborhood Integrity Act. This bill will require the city to develop a community-oriented process before brokers can rebrand a neighborhood or redefine its boundaries simply for commercial purposes. These new names rarely result from community input and are often disconnected from a neighborhood’s history, culture or tradition.” Meanwhile, Goodwin has this to say, in part: “In Brooklyn, even familiar names are nicknames for other neighborhoods. Prospect Lefferts Gardens was borrowed from a group of buildings in the Prospect Heights neighborhood, What about Ocean Hill and Kensington? They’re really Flatbush. And what about Stuyvesant Heights? Most of the owners of the million-dollar real estate in this historical area grew up there won’t argue that it’s Bedford-Stuyvesant…Brooklyn as a whole has also become such prime real estate—there are so many people moving farther and farther into Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights, and Bushwick—that it can no longer defined by just prime neighborhoods.”
Jeffries: Neighborhood Integrity Matters [BK Paper]
Goodwin: New Names Help Brooklyn Grow [BK Paper]
“He’s trying to stop brokers from misrepresenting neighborhoods and inflating prices, setting off a chain reaction that winds up pushing out people who have lived there for generations.”
So where do I live when I’m priced out of Williamsburg?
“Check out the exciting neighborhood bounded by Atlantic, Prospect, Nostrand and Bedford. Explore … ANosProBe.”
True, BHS- its that extra syllable that does it 🙂
Jeffries is not trying to stop people from moving anywhere. He’s trying to stop brokers from misrepresenting neighborhoods and inflating prices, setting off a chain reaction that winds up pushing out people who have lived there for generations. It is a real and painful problem for neighborhoods like Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and others. A very real problem.
Boerumresident – Read the piece. Jeffries is claiming (pretty speciously, in my opinion) to also be trying to protect “newer residents” who are deceived. That is obviously NOT his goal, but he is savvy enough to realize that a decent, vocal piece of his constituency would be offended by his apparently primary goal, which is to stop people like them from moving into areas where he does not view them as part of “a neighborhood’s history, culture or tradition.”
How is anyone actually hurt by a stupid neighborhood name?
As far as I can tell, I have no physical, emotional, or financial bruises from living in BoCoCa, and I think that is a much more stupid sounding name than ProCro.
MM – Why are you so confident that you know what “ProCro” is “supposed” to do and what everyone in Morningside Heights thinks about where they live? When I lived up there, I never heard people describe it as Harlem.
To take it one step farther, why are you so sure that there is no context to “ProCro” (a term I hate, because it’s awkward, but for argument’s sake will use)? Isn’t the context that it is faster and easier to write (or say, perhaps) “the area in west Crown Heights that is very near Prospect Heights and that some would argue is in fact Prospect Heights and shares some characteristics of Prospect Heights that are not traditionally associated with Crown Heights”? And why is it that old micro-neighborhoods are okay, but new ones are not? Don’t you live in “Crown Heights North”? If it is nonsense that “ProCro” could “erase” the fact that you are in Crown Heights, then why should we care?
In the past few days I’ve learned that 50 years ago, I would have lived in “Crown Heights” but that 100 years ago I would have lived in “Prospect Heights.” And according to my neighbor down the street who has lived here all of her 35 years, she grew up in “Park Slope.” I love my neighborhood and think it is awesome. Nevertheless, I am now feeling deceived, and I think I might sue the broker who sold us our place in “Prospect Heights,” who is the daughter of a neighboring homeowner (who got their house for free in the big bad 70s), and also sue the family who sold us the house, who reportedly bought three houses at various locations in tri-state area with the profit they made on the sale to us. Think I can get Jeffries to come out of retirement to represent me??
Actually now that I think about it, if this somehow gets people to stop using Ditmas Park, which is actually the 12 blocks between Ocean Av and the subway cut, from Cortelyou to Newkirk, to describe everything from Prospect Park to Avenue H, it could do some good.
But of course it won’t. Realtors have an interest in expanding the boundaries of brand-name neighborhoods, but it only works if others go along with it. Their power to unilaterally create neighborhood names ‘out of whole cloth’ is vastly overestimated by some of you.
No owner benefits from a dumb sounding name like “pro-Cro.” It’s stupid and insulting to everyone’s intelligence. But you are right- it is a big political game and one that has neighborhood residents caught in the middle. I honestly don’t know if Jeffries is right or wrong to push a bill controlling names, but I do understand where he is coming from and what he’s saying. And that I do agree with.
AJ — The problem Jeffries is trying to address is not protecting clueless renters/buyers from being suckered, but rather the impact on their long-resident neighbors from an influx of clueless neighbors.