Hipsters in the Bronx? Will the Bronx gentrify like Brooklyn did? (New York: apartments, rental market)

[SeventhFloor]

Originally Posted by cotb16

But unlike Brooklyn, if any Bronxite sees a hipster movement, they will fight to make sure they do not get evicted.

thoughts?

[Henna]

I think it will happen. Though SoBro has been slow to take off and has never seen the volume of artists flocking there that I think some predicted.

Lately the hipsters I know of seem to be going more south in Brooklyn - such as Prospect Park South, Church Ave area, Flatbush.

[drkman]

I think it depends on what the housing stock of the Bronx is. In Brooklyn, the gentrification wave hit in neighborhoods that the tenants basically had no protection in. For example, the housing stock in Fort Greene is basically privately owned homes (brownstones) that were not part of the rent stabilzed stock of housing or apartment buidlings in which the majority of tenants decided to accept the building being converted to co-ops or accepted an offer to move out.

With the brownstones, some of them were sold because of the price that was being offered or because the original owners passed away and the children decided they did not want to have the responsibility of maintaining the house and it was more convenient to split the proceeds from a sale. Once that occured, the new owners decided to increasae the rents to a level that the original tenants were unable to afford and since a tenant in a privately owned house/building does not have any legal protections once a lease is up, as far as the increase, it is an easy way for a landlord to evict. This scenario is the same in a lot of the gentrified areas in Brooklyn or some of the areas that gentrification is hitting hard (Clinton Hill, Bed-Stuy, Park Slope, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens etc.). For some of the other areas, the gentrification wave is there because of the newer co-ops, condos that are sprouting up all over the place. These buildings are built with a basic market in mind and that market is usually not the people in the area since the price of the apartments or shares tend to be way over what the median income in the neighborhood can afford.

For the area that I live in (Crown Heights) and areas with similar housing stock (Flatbush, Brownsville, Sunset Park etc.), the gentrification wave will hit but it will be combined with the people who already live in the neighborhood since the majority of rental buidlings are rent stabilized and not co-ops, even though a lot of co-ops and condos are being built, but not at the expense of the affordable housing stock (at least that is what I think). This is what I think will happen with some of the areas of the Bronx. For the areas around Grand Concourse and 167th street, I think there are a lot of rent stabilized buildings and the area may become somewhat gentrified but not to the extent that Fort Greene was. Same way some of the areas around Fordham Road off the 4 train. The Mott Haven area looks as if it will become gentrified but the gentrification will probably take place surrounding the projects so it will not be full gentrification but a mixture, which I believe is more healthy for the city and the neighborhood.

(For what it is worth, I am a believer in rent stabilization and subsidized housing as I believe it has a healthy effect on the rental market in the city.)

[UpsonDowns]

I think drkman makes several good points. Another obstacle to hipsters in the Bronx is proximity to downtown's traditional centers of hip. The spread from the East Village/Lower East to Williamsburg made perfect sense, it's just one subway stop. But there is no natural creep in "hipness" from upper Manhattan to the South Bronx.

Also, it seems that rents are already too high in the South Bronx (in anticipation of the hip wave) to actually support the low-income, high-creativity types who pave the way for the higher-income types to "discover" a neighborhood.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by UpsonDowns

Also, it seems that rents are already too high in the South Bronx (in anticipation of the hip wave) to actually support the low-income, high-creativity types who pave the way for the higher-income types to "discover" a neighborhood.

That's interesting. Are rents in the South Bronx comparatively higher than they were in, say, Williamsburg at the beginning of the 1980s, when that part of Brooklyn was "discovered"?

I think that the distance between The Bronx and the centers of "hipness" in Manhattan is what will keep neighborhoods there from being "discovered." For a while, anyway. Change will still come; as long as it's cheaper to move to The Bronx than it is to stay in Manhattan, people will eventually gravitate in that direction.

[UpsonDowns]

I don't know how cheap rents were in Williamsburg in the 80s. But, when I was sharing a true former-industrial loft in Dumbo eight years ago, we paid a lot less than what I've seen spaces going for in the South Bronx - even adjusted for inflation.

[Henna]

The artists studios (work only, no live) that I've seen listed in So Bro lately have seemed awfully high. What I remember seeing was somewhere around $600 a month for 300 sq feet, or somewhere along those lines. The rents in SoBro seemed to be approx. what you would pay for work space in LIC (maybe a tiny bit lower).

However, if you compare them to some that I've seen listed in prime Williamsburg - I almost want to laugh (or cry) when I see them. I think one I saw was 80 sq feet (that's 8-0, not 800) for something like $350 a month. That's a closet, not a studio. Some of the others I have seen listed in Williamsburg are more reasonable but definitely not cheap.

[Miami305Kid]

Brookyln isn't completely gentrified. It's gotten much better but Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, and East New York are still going strong. I actually don't think the Bronx will gentrify. Yes the South Bronx has gotten better, but that's not saying much. Plus the Bronx is around 14% white, 30% black and 51% Latino and the rest asian.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by Miami305Kid

Brookyln isn't completely gentrified. It's gotten much better but Bed-Stuy, Brownsville, and East New York are still going strong. I actually don't think the Bronx will gentrify. Yes the South Bronx has gotten better, but that's not saying much. Plus the Bronx is around 14% white, 30% black and 51% Latino and the rest asian.

Is that how you define gentrification...by the percentage of whites? I think you've got your colors mixed up. Gentrification has to do with green.

[BronxPride]

Originally Posted by Fred314X

Is that how you define gentrification...by the percentage of whites? I think you've got your colors mixed up. Gentrification has to do with green.

Let's be realistic, in NYC a neighborhood is considered gentrified when a number of people with higher incomes from another race, mostly white, move to a low-income neighborhood of another race, mostly of color. Gentrifiers aren't necessarily white, but it is not felt in the low-income community until whites move in. The funny thing is that there can be a group of white people sharing an apartment to make ends meet and a professional person of color living on his own in the same building, but the white tenants would be considered gentrifiers by the neighborhood.