Will Everyone Go Running Back to Manhattan?
Crain’s recycles the question (asked by The Times a week earlier) that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days: Do falling Manhattan rents spell the end of Brooklyn? We don’t think so. Clearly some people who work in Midtown and were living in Brooklyn based on price alone (“If it’s as expensive in Brooklyn…
Crain’s recycles the question (asked by The Times a week earlier) that seems to be on everyone’s mind these days: Do falling Manhattan rents spell the end of Brooklyn? We don’t think so. Clearly some people who work in Midtown and were living in Brooklyn based on price alone (“If it’s as expensive in Brooklyn as Manhattan, I’d rather just be in the real thing, says one publicist) will return to Manhattan but, we’d bet, most of the creative professionals who’ve put down roots in the County of Kings are here to stay. Real housewife Alex McCord summed up how we—and, if this poll is to be believed, many others—feel when she told the paper, Even if we had Warren Buffett money, we would never leave.
Can Brooklyn Keep Its Mojo? [Crain’s]
Brooklynites Jumping Ship to Manhattan? [Brownstoner]
Photo by cornell100
CWB — of course they are. Perhaps not consciously, but for MOST people on here Brooklyn means the northwest corner with $1 million homes and 6-figure incomes. Anything outside that characterization is foreign… $40,000/yr social worker that rents? Nope. They don’t live in the Brooklyn that most here has in mind….
Rents in Manhattan are falling – but still aren’t anywhere close to where they were 5 years ago, and not even comparable to Brooklyn.
Sure, a one bedroom in a tower on 1st avenue in Murray Hill may only cost 2,500 now instead of 2,800 (if you factor in the free months rent)
Oh and you can probably get a walk up tenament studio in the LES for 1700 now instead of 1900 – but do these little decreases in insane rents make them any less insane?
Let me know when I can get a studio again on the LES for 900 bucks and maybe we’ll talk.
tybur6 – I think you’re overreacting a little to what people are saying here. Yes, it’s dumb to state that Brooklyn is entirely populated by “creative professionals” when people who fall under that moniker are a definite minority in such a diverse borough, but I don’t think anyone here is really insinuating that.
> Where in manhattan can you get what Ft. Greene, Park Slope, Williamsburg et
> all have to offer? You can’t – you’d be sacrificing one thing for another.
Speaking only for myself, I am pondering Hell’s Kitchen. It has much of what I like about Park Slope, and I would recover many lost commuting hours.
Of course there are sacrifices. At my price point, it’s all about compromises.
I may yet end up staying put in Brooklyn, as at this point, most of my friends live out here. Still, I ponder, how nice would it be to walk to work?
if PURCHASE prices drop to same as BK, I would move back to Man – albeit not seeing or expecting that to happen any time soon. even post a massive price drop, we’re still talking about a large amount of $$$ (downpayment, loan,…) and I personally would have to look at this from an investmt angle (ie Man is AAA vs. BK is less than AAA). Like it or not, Man prices will do better than BK – ie if we’re talking about comparable units selling for same prices.
this recent MTA budget gap (toll on bridges,..) confirms politicians still treat the other boroughs as 2nd class citizens vs. Man. If they continue to think like that, I rather live in Man if prices are the same
“really they do not make decisions like yuppies”
Self-impressed twerps like Wine Lover confirm pigeonholing’s enduring popularity amongst the pigeon-brained.
It is interesting how this topic keeps generating plenty of strong emotion among Brooklyn residents.
If you told a group of Manhattan residents that some of their neighbors were considering moving to Brooklyn, their collective response would be somewhere between complete indifference and bemused confusion that you even considered the topic worthy of discussion.
Where do social workers and teachers and nurses and policemen live? East New York and Jersey I guess…
It would be good if we came up with a Soviet style segmentation plan for the city:
Manhattan: Uncreative Professional (banker, lawyer, doctor)
Brooklyn: Creative Professional (wealthy artist, rich designer, and movie stars)
Queens: Support Staff (nurses, secretaries)
Bronx: Service Workers (social workers, teacher, shop clerks, policemen, firefighters, etc.)
Staten Island: Laborers (carpenters, road works, electricians, plumbers, etc.)
“Even for renters, 20-somethings who need to pay only $900-1,000 a month are still only looking in Brooklyn.”
Yeah, you’re right, it’s only the 20-somethings that need to pay this. Once you’re “creative profession” takes off, you’re earning 6-figures easy! Fucking douche.