This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.
The Washington Post writes what Curbed has been documenting the last few years: Waterfront Brooklyn is now [so] totally over:
Much has been written about gentrification and its discontents, but in few places has the speed and finality of that transformation been more startling than in Williamsburg, a formerly working-class Brooklyn neighborhood of 180,000 people along the East River. A wall of luxury glass towers is rising for 25 blocks along the “East River Riviera.” Wander inland and check out the needle condo towers with three-bedroom places retailing at $1,135,000.
…
Overnight, another preserve of working-class American culture is rendered unaffordable to thousands of families — and to the hipsters themselves…As Williamsburg turns urban Disneyland, those who own homes, a small fraction, see values spike and pass the dough to their kids. Everything becomes safer, hipper, there’s better sushi.
This article dovetails very nicely with the The Myth of ‘Superstar Cities’ linked to yesterday:
La Guardia or Truman understood that great cities become so, in large part, due to the strivings of the upwardly mobile middle class and families, not the elites of any stripe. It may well be true, as Mr. Gyourko argues, that as the nation grows to 400 million or more there could be a niche for 10 to 20 such “productive resorts” serving as “enclaves of the wealthy.” But the urban future — today as in past generations — will belong mostly to places that continue to draw and nurture the middle class, which has driven the rise of most successful capitalist cities.
The game, however, is far from over. Some larger superstar cities, like New York or L.A., may still possess enough economic and social diversity as well as the physical space to shift direction. Despite their dysfunctional political systems, radical changes in tax, regulatory and education policies, including a new emphasis on practical skills training, could restore their historic attraction to those who wish to start a small business, or maintain a middle-class family.
I have no doubt that in less than 5 years, my days in Greenpoint will be numbered.
Your days in Greenpoint should be numbered now!! That should be so for fears of pollution and your own health. 1000 years of Non-Linear History by De Landa has quite a bit of historical information about the rise and fall of cities which could supply a macro/historical perspective to the context of Williamsburg as well as the ‘Superstar Cities’ article.