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Started with SOHO and the Upper West Side in the early 80's.Then NOHO,LES,East Village,Chelsea.Then the push into Brooklyn.
The gentrification push seems to be sputtering right now.It seems to have lost momentum and is showing signs of fraying around the edges in neighborhoods that started to get on the merry go round just before the economic collapse.It is stalled out in Bushwick,Bed Stuy,Harlem and The South Bronx.Not sure whether it will wither and shrink back or if it will get on track again.Could go either way.
It may well all end with the end of Bloomberg's reign.The next mayor may not be a gentrification champion.There needs to be a champion greasing all the wheels ,pulling all the levers and pushing all the buttons for the real estate industry.
The first phase of the gentrification era was natural and organic,led from below.The last phases were completely manipulated and choreographed from above.Bloomberg was the puppet master and he will be gone soon.
Great post bludog2. That last paragraph is dead on accurate!
Point is, this alleged "gentrification" has been occuring long before the "evil" Hipsters of the early 2000s. It has been a part of NYC history for generations, and nothing new. People have been complaining about getting "priced out" of "their neighborhoods" since neighborhoods existed.....that's what people do..complain, blame others. I take little stock in the nonstop complaints as it has never ceased..if it isn't these people complaining, it's someone else. Rents go up, expenses go up..that's life...there are no guarantees or promises that you will live where you want, forever, at the price you determine. Nor is it "your neighborhood" anymore than the guy who just moved in next door.
This is a bit off topic.
I'm simply asking for a timeline. For example...
Park Slope was drug infested in 1967. In 1975, the median income jumped by 30 percent. By 1980, there was a critical mass of young professionals. The neighborhood stalled a bit during the 80s. By 1993, the outward signs of gentrification became more apparent in the form of coffee shops, yoga studios, etc. By 2000, it was done.
Wrong the easiest one is probably in the east village which probably started much more earlier than Williamsburg. I also want to add Morningside Heights which helped propel gentrification uptown.
When did the Morningside Heights designation really begin to catch on? As far as I know, everything north of 110th Street was considered Harlem (hence Bobby Womack's hit song "Across 110th Street").
It is not off topic...I was pretty clear that is has been happening since neighborhoods became established in NYC. If you want to talk about POST 1995 gentrification, we can, or post 2002 gentrification, we can, or 1960-1980 gentrification, we can, or 1920-1940 gentrification we can...get it?
The timeline goes back as far back as you want to discuss. All the neighborhoods you listed are recent cases of "gentrification"...the timeline goes back 100+ years.
It is not off topic...I was pretty clear that is has been happening since neighborhoods became established in NYC. If you want to talk about POST 1995 gentrification, we can, or post 2002 gentrification, we can, or 1960-1980 gentrification, we can, or 1920-1940 gentrification we can...get it?
You can go back to the Native Americans if you want. But talking about "complainers" and "whiners" is off topic.
I agree with bluedog that it's not just going to keep going. There just aren't enough wealthy people to fill up Crown Heights AND Harlem AND the South Bronx, etc. I see it consolidating into a couple neighborhoods and fizzling elsewhere.
In addition to Bloomberg greasing the wheels, the state has been phasing out rent regulation since 1993, when they passed the law that allows vacant apartments to become deregulated. That single policy choice is hugely important and I'm surprised people don't pay more attention to it.
The other thing that happened in the last decade, and I don't know how much blame Bloomberg gets for this, is the flood of global money that rendered core Manhattan basically uninhabitable for all normal people in a very short time. That kind of sent a shock wave into the outer boroughs.
Last edited by BinxBolling; 08-08-2012 at 10:42 AM..
I've yet to see it but the movie "The Lanlord" is about gentrification in Park Slope in the 70s.
"The film depicts a pre-gentrification neighborhood that little resembles the Park Slope of today. The mother of Beau Bridges’ character refers to the area with horror as “the ghetto,” and, in turn, Park Slope’s residents aren’t too thrilled at being pushed out of their homes.
“The differences between Park Slope now and 40 years ago are enormous,” he said. “In 1970, Park Slope was predominantly black and lower-class. The brownstones were crumbling, stores were shuttered, blocks were burnt out.”
This is odd because it's just not true. Park Slope was never predominantly black or exceptionally poor. It did briefly, in the 1960s, have a black population around 20% and a fair amount of poverty. However, it went from a declining mostly Italian and Irish neighborhood in the 50s and 60s to a gentrifying community in the 70s and onward, skipping the intermediate step of extreme poverty that other areas like Prospect Heights experienced. Predictably, Park Slope gentrifiers overstate how bad the conditions they moved into were.
The problem is that everyone has different beliefs about the extent of gentrification in a given area. Many seem to think its pretty extensive in Harlem, but I'd disagree and say its only concentrated in a select area, for example. We see similar problems in Brooklyn, where the first ounce of new residents instantly equates to full on gentrificstion (how would we even begin to deal with such varied areas as Bushwick and Bed-Stuy?). I find the topic fascinating, but standardizing it near impossible.
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