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Urban Studies, Vol. 40, No. 12, 2487–2509, November 2003

Super-gentrification: The Case of Heights, New

Loretta Lees

[Paper first received, January 2003; in final form, May 2003]

Summary. This paper is an empirical examination of the process of ‘super-gentrification’ in the of City. This intensified regentrification is in a few select areas of global like and New York that have become the focus of intense investment and by a new generation of super-rich ‘financifiers’ fed by fortunes from the global finance and corporate service industries. This latest resurgence of gentrification can be distinguished from previous rounds of revitalisation and poses important questions about the historical continuity of current manifestations of gentrification with previous generations of neighbourhood change.

1. Introduction Gentrification research has traditionally fo- tunes from the global finance and corporate cused on the economic and cultural apprecia- service industries. We can begin to under- tion of formerly disinvested and devalued stand some of what super-gentrification inner-city areas by an affluent . involves by considering the story of a fairly In this paper, I want to examine a somewhat ordinary four-storey house in different phenomenon: ‘super-gentrification’. Brooklyn Heights, , which By super-gentrification, I mean the trans- I will tell by drawing on interviews with formation of already gentrified, prosperous the householder (D) who first gentrified the and solidly upper-middle-class neighbour- house and his next-door-neighbour (S). hoods into much more exclusive and expens- I want to use the biography of this build- ive enclaves. This intensified regentrification ing to reflect critically on some familiar is happening in a few select areas of global ways of explaining gentrification and the cities like London and New York that have challenges posed to them by what I am become the focus of intense investment and calling super-gentrification. After a brief conspicuous consumption by a new gener- discussion of my data and methods, I then ation of super-rich ‘financifiers’ fed by for- document the history and gentrification of

Loretta Lees is in the Department of Geography, King’s London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, UK. Fax: 020 7848 2287. E-mail: [email protected]. The author would like to thank David Demeritt and Bruce Malamud for their invaluable help with the statistical work to be found in this paper, Roma Beaumont for drawing the map and the interviewees and survey respondents in Brooklyn Heights for being so generous with their . Versions of this paper presented at the ‘Upward Neighbourhood Trajectories: Gentrification in a New Century’ conference, , Scotland, and the ‘Urbanism 2003’ seminar, School of Architecture, Norway—the author thanks the participants for their useful comments.

0042-0980 Print/1360-063X On-line/03/122487–23  2003 The Editors of Urban Studies DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000136174 2488 LORETTA LEES

Figure 1. D’s Brownstone House in Brooklyn Heights.

Brooklyn Heights, and the extent and impact At the time we had very limited resources of super-gentrification on the pre-existing so we had to find something that was community. Finally, the paper concludes reasonably inexpensive and at the time we with a discussion of what is new and what is felt we had to buy something north of historically and geographically specific about Joralemon because of the of this latest form of gentrification. below Joralemon Street which was very heavily rental units to Hispanics, mostly Puerto Rican rooming houses. But because price was a big factor for us we ended up 2. The Biography of a Brownstone buying south of Joralemon Street anyway, In 1962, as gentrification began to take off in and the property was quite small (inter- view with D, August 2002). Brooklyn Heights, a young working in Lower paid $28 000 for a small At the time, the property was divided into four-storey Brownstone (see Figure 1). three : the basement and par- and his wife had rented an in lour floor were the owners’ apartment, while Brooklyn Heights for the previous four years the second and top floors contained small, and liked the neighbourhood. As D explained -controlled apartments occupied by to me: working-class Irish families. SUPER- IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2489

We owned the whole building subject to When his family circumstances changed in two rent control leases. It was a rather big the mid 1990s, D put the house in which he speculation on our behalf. We didn’t know had raised his family on the market. His how, or whether, we’d get rid of them at broker valued the house at $640 000—or all (interview with D, August 2002). nearly 23 times more than what he had paid for it some 30 years before. Within a week, The family living on the top floor left volun- an English woman employed on tarily after eight months when the husband of as a broker specialising in Japanese bonds the family had a attack and was advised and securities, had agreed a purchase price of by his doctor that he should no longer climb $595 000 and written a personal cheque for the stairs to his top-floor, walk-up apartment. the full amount! Previous generations of gen- D took over their apartment. D and his wife trifiers needed mortgages and so were subject now lived in a house in which they had use to banking loan officers’ ideas about who, of the top and bottom floors but not the what and where in was suitable for middle floor that still contained a rent-con- gentrification. By contrast, in New York, trolled apartment. Seven years after he there is now a new generation flush with the moved in, D finally evicted this tenant: exorbitant rewards of the global finance and The other tenant left because we evicted corporate service industries (see Warf, 2000). them. We filed a petition to have them They are able to marshal previously unheard evicted on the grounds (permissible under of sums to finance their domestic repro- the rent control law) which if a landlord duction. It is not only the volume and source had an immediate and compelling need for of the assets they mobilise that mark out the space for his own use he can evict the these ‘financifiers’ from previous generations tenant. I investigated the law. We already of gentrifiers, but also, I would suggest, their had one child and were about to have a lifestyles and values as well. second child and needed the space (inter- The story of our house after its sale is view with D, August 2002). taken up by the next door neighbour, S: D invested sweat equity in his brownstone. He estimates that he spent approximately She didn’t move in straight away because $40 000 on improvements, mostly in the it took her nine months to renovate the early years: house. Meanwhile she rented an apartment It was electrical, heating, painting, for an astronomical fee elsewhere in the etc … relatively minor. A lot of it was Heights … She was English, he was Aus- cosmetic. The goal was to retain period tralian—he used to wear shell suits features. I even bought, for a nominal sum, and chains … . two fireplaces that had been ripped out of The renovations cost her way more than other houses and put them in my chil- the house: a minimum of three-quarters of dren’s bedrooms (interview with D, Au- a million. She gutted the place … took out gust 2002). weight-bearing walls, knocked out ceilings and floors, everything. They completely Thus far, the story is a fairly familiar one of changed the floor plan. My house was middle-class upgrading and working-class covered in dust from the for displacement. Indeed, it is almost a textbook months … They installed central air con- case of gentrification as first described by ditioning, walk in closets, and to wall Ruth Glass (1964). What has happened to the cables. In [one of D’s children] old room house since 1995, however, illustrates in on the top floor they even put in a mar- microcosm a new process I am calling super- blized bathroom with a jacuzzi. Then they gentrification (compare with Dangschat’s didn’t like it, so they pulled it all out and (1991) typology of the ultra-gentrifier). redid it again! 2490 LORETTA LEES

S. goes on to refer rather scathingly to the time and space. According to Neil Smith quite different lifestyles and values of the (2002, p. 427) gentrification is now a global incomers: urban strategy that has displaced the liberal urban policy of old with a new revanchist The garden said it all. When D lived there, urbanism, “densely connected into the cir- there was a mature urban garden, with cuits of global and cultural circu- vine, ivy, clematis, crab , lation” and concerned with capitalist etc. They were control freaks … they production rather than social reproduction. couldn’t deal with stuff growing! They As Smith notes (p. 439) gentrification is now pulled it all up and turfed over the whole evident well beyond the familiar core of garden … They suburbanised it—green -American cities commonly studied by lawn and BBQ and nothing else! They urban geographers. It is being documented brought Scottsdale, , to Brooklyn across the from (Jones and Heights … Varley, 1999) to (Gonen, 2002). More- One day on my way home from work I over, academics no longer restrict the term noticed what looked like an outhouse in ‘gentrification’ to processes located in the their front … It was so big. It was a city centre. Increasingly, they also use it to shed they got built for their garbage cans. describe similar changes in the suburbs (see I was going to say something but the N. Smith, 2002, p. 442; Hackworth and historic preservation got there Smith, 2001; Smith and Defilippis, 1999) and first … even rural areas (see Smith and Philips, She got pregnant 4–5 months after mov- 2001, on ‘greentrified rurality’ and D. Smith, ing in and had twins. They had only lived 2002). there a year when they upped and moved Not only does ‘third-wave’ gentrification to Scottsdale Arizona. Then a couple from now occur in a variety of sites, but it also Cobble Hill bought it for over $1.75 mil- takes a myriad of forms. It can be of the lion!!— folk with two kids who traditional or classic form—that is, by indi- loved the state of the wiring (interview vidual gentrifiers renovating old housing with S, August 2002). through sweat equity or by hiring builders and interior designers and so leading to the embourgeoisement of a neighbourhood and 3. Third-wave Gentrification the displacement of less wealthy residents. It The emergence of super-gentrification is just is now also increasingly state-led with na- one example of how gentrification shifted tional and local governmental policy tied up into top gear during the long economic boom in supporting gentrification initiatives (see of the 1990s. This latest resurgence of gen- Lees, 2003; Atkinson, 2002; N. Smith, 2002; trification, which Jason Hackworth and Neil Hackworth and Smith, 2001; Wyly and Ham- Smith (2001) have dubbed ‘third-wave’ gen- mel, 1999). In a departure from the tra- trification to distinguish it from previous ditional concern with renovating old housing rounds of revitalisation, poses important stock, some now argue that gentrification can questions about the historical continuity of also be new build (see Morrison and McMur- current manifestations of gentrification with ray, 1999). Nor is it always residential—it previous generations of neighbourhood can also be commercial (see Kloosterman change.1 and van der Leun, 1999). This proliferation One important issue is about the location of gentrification at different scales, at differ- and scale—or the ‘distanciation’ (see Gid- ent sites and in different forms suggests that dens, 1981, 1984)—of gentrification: the gentrification has truly become the ‘plague of ways in which both the underlying processes locusts’ that N. Smith (1984, p. 152) once of gentrification and the material changes described it as. they produce are stretched and sustained over Adding ‘super-gentrification’ to this long SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2491 list of gentrification forms, I realise that I am concept of super-gentrification presents running the considerable risk of making the something of a challenge to traditional ex- meaning of the term so expansive as to lose planatory models of gentrification, which any conceptual sharpness and specificity. A presume an end-point to the process. number of scholars have argued that gen- models of gentrification were developed in trification is a ‘chaotic’ concept describing the 1970s and both to explain the the contingent and geographically specific process and to predict the future course of results of different processes operating in gentrification (see Kerstein, 1990, for a re- different ways in different contexts (see view). For example, Clay (1979, pp. 57–60) , 1984; Beauregard, 1986). This is outlined a schema from stage one ( nowhere more true than with the process of gentrification) through to stage four (matur- super-gentrification. Indeed, I maintain that ing gentrification). Similarly Dangschat’s there are several reasons why we should (1991) gentrification typology presumed that consider the case of super-gentrification in pioneer gentrifiers would be succeeded in a more detail. final phase of gentrification by ‘ultragen- First, it provides a concrete manifestation trifiers’, who were distinguished from pio- of sometimes rather abstract claims made neers on the basis of age and aggregate about the relationships between global econ- income. Like the now-discredited climax omic and urban-scale processes. For in- ecology models of vegetation invasion and stance, Neil Smith (2002, p. 441) argues that succession on which they were predicated the “hallmark of [this] latest phase of gen- (see Hagen, 1992), such gentrification stage trification” is the “reach of global capital models assume that the process of gen- down to the local neighbourhood scale”. The trification will eventually reach a stable and relationships among global economic pro- self-perpetuating final climax stage of ‘ma- cesses, local places and communities are ture gentrification’. The example of super- nowhere more obvious than in the super-gen- gentrification demonstrates the of this trification of Brooklyn Heights. Closely tied, assumption about the stability both of the through the labour market, to global financial underlying processes and of the resulting markets, super-gentrifying patterns of gentrification.2 As Chris Hamnett like Brooklyn Heights are peculiarly posi- argued some time ago now: tioned global spaces/places. While it is im- It should be clear that gentrification is portant to recognise the specificity of its merely another stage in a continuing his- location within the global space economy, torically contingent sequence of residen- there is no reason to assume that the pro- tial-area evolution. There are no cesses of super-gentrification at play in universally and temporally stable residen- Brooklyn Heights are totally unique to it. tial patterns (Hamnett, 1984, p. 314). Indeed, Butler and Robson (2001a, pp. 5 and 10–12) have suggested that Barnsbury in Drawing on neo-Marxist rent-gap models, London is also “witnessing second gener- Hackworth and Smith (2001) have recently ation (re)gentrification”, driven largely by produced a schematic history of gen- finance and financial-sector workers em- trification in New York City, which they ployed in the City of London. And there is divide into three distinct separated by anecdotal evidence that Slope, located two transitional periods of recession-induced in Brooklyn not far from Brooklyn Heights, restructuring of the institutional context and is experiencing super-gentrification too (see mechanisms through which gentrification oc- Lees, 2000; Slater, 2003). curred. Their very useful heuristic model of Secondly, by highlighting new processes gentrification was not designed with the pre- intensifying the economic valorisation of— dictive intention of early stage models and so and consequent social and cultural changes does not commit the fallacy of constant con- in—already gentrified neighbourhoods, the junction (Sayer, 1992). But its emphasis on 2492 LORETTA LEES the dialectic of disinvestment and reinvest- tated by the fact that the census-tract ment and the attractions of “reinvesting in boundaries have not changed in more than disinvested inner-urban areas so alluring for 40 years, making time-series comparisons investors” leads Hackworth and Smith (2001, relatively easy. Secondly, I also draw on p. 468, 469) to discount the possibility of results of a questionnaire survey, which was intensified investment in first wave neigh- hand delivered to 998 households covering bourhoods, like Brooklyn Heights, that “have all the in Brooklyn Heights. The sur- already been fully invested”. That oversight vey was 10 pages long and contained 95 seems somewhat surprising, given their em- closed and open-ended questions, many of phasis on the dynamism of restless capital as them quite intrusive in nature. Considering a driving-force behind the new manifesta- the length of the questionnaire and intrusive tions of the process they so helpfully docu- nature of the questions, the 101 question- ment. naires I received back by stamped self-ad- dressed envelope was a good return rate (post-September 11 also meant that residents 4. Researching Super-gentrification were less interested in responding).4 Al- In the remainder of this paper, I examine the though survey respondents were dispropor- process I am calling super-gentrification in tionately owner-occupiers (68 per cent; see more detail through a case study of the Table 1) and as a result tended to be older Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood of New and wealthier than the population of the York City. I am conscious that different re- neighbourhood as a whole, I received re- search methods provide different accounts of sponses from a broad range of neighbour- gentrification. In this paper, I draw on data hood residents. collected in 2002 as part of an on-going study of the history of gentrification and urban community in Brooklyn Heights.3 My 5. The Case of Brooklyn Heights, New interest in super-gentrification was initially York City sparked by the frequency with which older 5.1 The History of Gentrification in Brooklyn residents I interviewed tended both to cel- Heights ebrate their neighbourhood’s close-knit com- munity feeling and to worry about the effects Located on a 150-foot-high bluff overlooking upon it of sky-rocketing real estate prices and the harbour and (see Fig- the influx of Wall Street financifiers taking ure 2), Brooklyn Heights was one of the first over the apartments and occu- neighbourhoods in the US to gentrify. Hence pied by a previous generation of gentrifiers. it has long served as a model for gentrifiers’ When recalling the past, there is often a own ‘how-to’ (see, for example, Stan- tendency to romanticise, and so in this paper forth and Stamm, 1972; Brownstone Revival I balance the qualitative reflections drawn Committee, 1969). The neighbourhood’s ele- from those semi-structured, in-depth inter- gant tree-lined streets (see Figure 3) and views with Brooklyn Heights’ residents (and brownstone or brick were first some ex-residents) undertaken during a first developed in the early 19th century by round of fieldwork in the summer of 2002 wealthy business, shipping and tradespeople with two other sources of data. First, I make drawn across the from Lower extensive use of the decennial US Census, as Manhattan by the availability of the Fulton well as other official statistics from the New Street steam service. As well as being York City Department of Finance, for the Manhattan’s first commuter suburb, Brook- four census tracts covering the neighbour- lyn Heights was also the legal and cultural hood, to set recent changes in the context centre for the City of Brooklyn (Jackson and both of the history of the area and of New Manbeck, 1998). The succession of historic York City as a whole. Comparison is facili- homes and public buildings rendered in SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2493

Figure 2. Brooklyn Heights and surrounds.

Gothic revival, Queen Anne and other fash- quantity of slum housing. As many as a third ionable styles of the day reflected the neigh- of its houses were boarded up due to bourhood’s position throughout the century . These houses “were taken over as one of the wealthiest communities in the as rooming houses by rapacious absentee US (see Warf, 1990, on the social ecology of landlords” (Stanforth and Stamm, 1972, Brooklyn as a whole from the to the p. 58). 1980s). After World War II, “the area was redis- However, its e´lite status began to fade in covered by upwardly mobile young adults the early when the construction who rejected the suburbs and regarded of the IRT (Interborough ) sub- Brooklyn Heights as a desirable alternative way opened up the neighbourhood to a fur- to Manhattan’s scarce and expensive apart- ther wave of commuters. Many of the ments” (NYC Department of City Planning, upper-middle-class residents of Brooklyn 1976, p. 11). In the 1940s, in a now-classic Heights fled for more distant suburbs, leav- gentrification scenario, and artists ing their large brownstone houses to be div- such as , Thomas Wolf and W. ided into apartments and boarding houses for H. Auden started to move into the area. more modest occupants. By the Depression, Then, in the 1950s, grassroots organisations Brooklyn Heights contained a substantial and community groups, led by the Brooklyn 2494 LORETTA LEES

Figure 3. Brooklyn Heights: an elegant tree-lined street.

Heights Association (BHA), became active and Stamm, 1972, p. 61; see Figure 4). His- in initiating the renovation of Brooklyn toric preservation helped to secure the area Heights’ historic brownstones. Most fa- against both further devalorisation and slum mously, the BHA halted plans by clearance plans then being mooted. By the Moses, New York City early 1960s, a wave of new investment by and Head of the Triborough and Tun- owner-occupiers like D was transforming the nel Authority, to drive the Brooklyn– neighbourhood. The Brownstone Revival Expressway (BQE) through the middle of the Committee (1969) reported that whereas in neighbourhood and in the process destroy the mid 1950s homes could be purchased for hundreds of historic buildings (see Mc- as little as $20 000–30 000, by the early Carthy, 2001). In what became Moses’ first 1960s they were selling for $65 000– defeat, the BQE was diverted along the edge 120 000. By the 1970s, the neighbourhood of the bluff around the Heights to , atop had come full and was once again the two decks of the BQE below, the Prome- emerging as a fashionable and prosperous nade—a popular walk-way and park with brownstone community that drew the Wall benches and picture-postcard views over the Street financial community. harbour and the Manhattan that has Throughout the 1980s and into the become a Heights .5 1990s, a more corporatised gentrification The BHA was also instrumental in gaining moved steadily throughout the already historic preservation status for the neighbour- ‘tamed’ Brooklyn Heights. As Hackworth hood. In 1965, Brooklyn Heights became the (2002, p. 820) notes, such corporate partici- first New York City neighbourhood to be pation demonstrates the maturation of gen- designated both a national landmark by the trification in neighbourhoods. This was Department of the Interior and a New York closely tied to the redevelopment of Down- City Historic District by the Pres- Brooklyn nearby, subsidised by the ervation Commission in recognition of its City and the Federal government, and to numerous pre- buildings (Stanforth other redevelopment projects such SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2495

Figure 4. Brooklyn Heights Historic District. 2496 LORETTA LEES as the Project conceived home from work late at night—others see it and fostered by major city finance and real as part of what one resident dubbed the estate interests (see Steinberg, 1994, for an on-going ‘’ of Brooklyn excellent discussion of redevelopment in Heights which “will crowd out the neigh- at this time, the import- bors ϩ upset the small town scale of B. H” ance of its physical location minutes from (survey, no. 39). It is on the back of the Wall Street and the exacerbation of gen- corporatisation or Manhattanisation of trification in adjacent neighbourhoods). The Brooklyn Heights that a process of super- construction of Metrotech in Downtown gentrification has emerged. But before Brooklyn, with its back-office facilities for turning my attention to that, the US Census large companies such as , provides a more indication of the brought a booming lunch-time to changes that have ensued with the wholesale Brooklyn Heights’ main commercial street— gentrification of Brooklyn Heights. Montague Street. Rents up and large With 93.4 per cent of housing units in the corporate chains such as The Gap, Banana neighbourhood in 2000 built before 1969 Republic and Starbucks soon moved in. (71.2 per cent before 1939), the total number Many long-time residents view the increas- of housing units has remained roughly con- ing corporate commercial presence, and the stant between 1970 and 2000. However, the added traffic and shoppers it draws to Brook- tenure of residents has shifted quite dramati- lyn Heights, as an on the small town cally. The percentage of owner-occupied ethos and community feel of the neighbour- housing increased from 12.1 per cent of units hood: in 1970, well below the city-wide average of 33.1 per cent, to 39.0 per cent in 2000—well Corporations have come into the neighbor- above the city-wide average of 28.5 per cent hood changing the residential nature of B. (see Table 1). Although the city’s rent con- H., too many chain stores and not enough trol and rent stabilisation programmes kept catering to local residents (survey, no. 48). the rate of increase of mean gross rents in Brooklyn Heights in line with city-wide That feeling of loss was echoed by others: trends, the shrinking supply of rental prop- The high rents on Montague Street drove erty, combined with the spectacular, 1841 the small, family-owned businesses out of per cent increase in the average specified the neighborhood and only the large nominal value of owner-occupied property chains could afford the spaces, therefore (more than double the rate of increase city- the ‘look’ of Montague St is very much wide), has made in the like the look of many streets in Manhattan. neighbourhood increasingly to come by. It was nicer when we had our own look The activity of first-wave gentrifiers like D. (survey, no. 83). converting townhouses from multiple occu- pation back to single or dual-family owner- In the past few years, the adjacent Atlantic occupancy is reflected both in the dramatic /Court Street commercial has decline in the number of rental units in undergone an even more dramatic transform- Brooklyn Heights without a full bath (a use- ation. Long a no-man’s land with downmar- ful proxy indicator of SROs and other hous- ket shops and a boarded-up porn theatre, it ing for low income-groups)6 from 805 in now boasts several high-rise apartment build- 1970 to 195 in 1980 and in the corresponding ings and a large -mall with a multiplex 50.8 per cent increase in the number of three- cinema and national chains such as Barnes or more bedroom, owner-occupied properties and Noble, CVS and Ben & Jerry’s. Whilst between 1970 and 1990. for some residents (mostly the newcomers), In returning historic homes to their these developments are welcomed as posi- former , gentrifiers were transforming tive—especially in terms of safety walking not just the face of the built environment, but SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2497 East Brunswick, NJ. ,  1970 1980 1990 2000 Housing statistics for Brooklyn Heights and New York City, 1970–2000 Table 1. Census, Neighborhood Change Database, GeoLytics S :U occupied property ($) occupied property ($) Brooklyn Heights (census tractsNumber 1, of 3.01, housing 5, unitsPercentage 7) owner-occupiedPercentage renter-occupiedAverage specified gross rentAverage ($) specified value of owner-New York City Number of housing unitsPercentage owner-occupiedPercentage renter-occupiedAverage specified gross rent 11Average ($) 244 specified 54 value 268 of 12.1 owner- 148 87.4Source 11 202 492 775 16.0 321 2 83.0 917 429 531 579 10 223 28 194 33.1 148 2 941 66.0 850 34.1 999 213 667 62.5 11 057 57 299 2 992 212 22.2 262 76.6 39.0 3 205 200 889 59.8 912 946 27.0 538 71.3 250 307 28.5 69.8 766 2498 LORETTA LEES

Table 2. Demographic Statistics for Brooklyn Heights and New York City, 1970–2000

1970 1980 1990 2000

Brooklyn Heights (census tracts 1, 3.01, 5, 7) Total population 20 524 19 833 18 051 20 132 Percentage Ͻ 18 years of age 14.1 9.6 9.1 10.5 Percentage Ͼ 64 years of age 14.6 15.1 12.9 12.9 Percentage White 94.9 89.4 87.8 82.9 Percentage African American 4.1 6.3 7.0 8.5 Percentage Hispanic 7.3 6.7 6.4 7.5 Percentage Ͼ 25 years completing Ͼ 15 38.0 51.5 63.4 70.8 years school Total employed in civilian labour force 11 901 13 115 10 263 11 995 Percentage in professional and technical 45.7 38.4 47.2 47.7 occupations Percentage employed as managers and 10.9 21.0 23.0 26.1 administrators Employed in FIRE (finance, insurance, N/A N/A 2 064 2 280 and real estate) New York City Total population 7 892 350 7 070 424 7 322 670 8 008 278 Percentage Ͻ 18 years of age 28.4 25.0 23.0 24.2 Percentage Ͼ 64 years of age 12.1 13.4 13.0 11.7 Percentage White 77.2 61.5 52.3 46.7 Percentage African American 21.1 25.3 28.8 28.4 Percentage Hispanic 16.2 19.9 23.7 27.0 Percentage Ͼ 25 years completing Ͼ 15 10.6 17.3 23.0 29.2 years school Total employed in civilian labour force 3 190 789 2 917 974 3 257 698 3 277 825 Percentage in professional and technical 15.7 16.9 20.1 23.3 occupations Percentage employed as managers and 7.8 11.4 13.5 13.5 administrators Employed in FIRE (finance, insurance, N/A N/A 401 765 372 809 and real estate)

Source:USCensus, Neighborhood Change Database, GeoLytics, East Brunswick, NJ. also the composition and qualitative feel of dominantly White, with recent modest per- the neighbourhood (see Table 2). These centage declines in the White population changes must be understood in the context of largely reflecting the small but growing wider demographic changes in the City of Asian population. While the racial make-up New York since its near-bankruptcy during of Brooklyn Heights has not changed much the economic crisis of the 1970s (see Lees over the past 30 years, neighbourhood resi- and Bondi, 1995; Mollenkopf and Castells, dents have become increasingly wealthy, - 1991). Although first-wave gentrifiers fre- ter educated and even more heavily involved quently commented to me that the neigh- in professional occupations and in the bourhood is now older, with fewer children financial services industry, both in absolute and more senior citizens, than when they first terms and relative to the population of the moved to Brooklyn Heights, these demo- city as a whole. Since the neighbourhood’s graphic shifts reflect wider national trends Hispanic population has remained almost rather than changes specific to Brooklyn constant, in contrast to city and nation-wide Heights. In contrast to the city as a whole, trends (Table 2), those displaced by first- the neighbourhood has always been pre- wave gentrification in Brooklyn Heights SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2499

Figure 5. Trends in family income in New York City and Brooklyn Heights, 1970–2000. Source: Author’s calculations, from US Census and Neighborhood Change Database, GeoLytics, East Brunswick, NJ.

Figure 6. Distribution of families in Brooklyn Heights by annual income percentile categories for all New York City families. Source: Author’s calculations, from US Census and Neighborhood Change Database, GeoLytics, East Brunswick, NJ. were predominantly White, often Irish and most gentrification research (for example, . As first-wave gentrifiers Ley, 1996; Butler, 1997). were often Protestant or Jewish, who tended The most dramatic changes in Brooklyn to send their children to private schools in Heights have been the increases in income, the neighbourhood, rather than to the local particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, and their public and Catholic schools, gentrification in divergence from city-wide trends (Figure 5). the neighbourhood had an ethno-religious di- Further analysis of income data from the mension as well as the class and, to a lesser census shows the progressive displacement extent racial, ones that have been the focus of of low income families in Brooklyn Heights 2500 LORETTA LEES

Figure 7. Mean specified value of owner-occupied property, 1970–2000. Source: Author’s calculations, from US Census and Neighborhood Change Database, GeoLytics, East Brunswick, NJ.

by high-income ones.7 The census provides row, standard-sized ‘bins’. Secondly, as- data on numbers of families with different suming that families were normally annual incomes using nationally standard in- distributed by income within the original come categories, or bins, of various interval census income intervals, I apportioned the widths (for example, families in 1970 with number of families contained in the census’ incomes $9000–9999, $10 000–11 999, etc.). original wider income interval category bins The resulting variation in the width, or bin equally among the appropriate number of size, of these income interval categories standard-sized bins. Then, I was able to cal- makes it particularly difficult to interpret the culate a cumulative frequency distribution of raw income frequency distribution data for number of families by annual income. Fi- neighbourhoods like Brooklyn Heights with nally, I used linear interpolation to estimate a skewed income distribution. This is be- the percentage of families in a given popu- cause the high-income categories containing lation with a given annual income (see Fig- the largest number of families also have the ure 6).8 widest bin sizes (for example, $25 000– As Figure 6 demonstrates, the number of 49 999) and so would be expected to en- families in Brooklyn Heights with incomes compass a larger number of families than below the median income for all New York categories with a narrower bin size encom- City families has become steadily smaller a narrower annual income interval over time, with the most rapid changes tak- (such as $9000–9999). ing place during the 1970s. Over the past 10 To explore in more detail the changing years, the small number of lower-income distribution of families by income, I per- families remaining in the neighbourhood has formed a four-step statistical analysis. First, I held steady, while the number of ‘upper-mid- standardised the bin size of the annual in- dle’ income families, with incomes between come interval categories used by the Census the 51st and 90th per centile of all New York Bureau to classify families in a given year by City families, has fallen by nearly 9.7 per income. Taking as standard the bin size of cent. At the same time, the number of famil- the narrowest income interval used in each ies among the highest 10 per cent of all New census, I sub-divided wider income interval York City families by income has increased categories into a larger number of more nar- by the same amount. As a result, now more SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2501

Figure 8. Residential sales prices for selected property types in Brooklyn Heights and New York City, 1992–2001. Source: New York City Department of Finance Property Transaction File, Misland Report, NYC Department of Planning. than half of the families in the neighbour- on here), building a number of luxury high- hood are among the wealthiest 10 per cent of rise apartment buildings and prompting con- all families in the City of New York. While cerns from residents about erosion of the these changes are suggestive of what I am historical character and low-rise feel of the calling ‘super-gentrification’, such cross-sec- neighbourhood. Globally linked corporate tional analysis does not provide a basis for real estate brokerage firms like the Corcoran inferring whether they are the result of dis- Group, whose Brooklyn Heights office is placement of older residents by more now located on Montague Street, are very wealthy incomers, of the relative enrichment active and visible in the area. But within the of existing residents (either through ageing, historic district, what is noteworthy is the increased salaries, the stock market or some prevalence of individuals and private finance other processes), or some combination of the in a new round of intensified investment and two. Nor does such extensive quantitative super-gentrification. analysis provide a basis for explaining the The 1990s have seen a boom in Brooklyn underlying causes of the process responsible Heights’ real estate prices that is the talk of for super-gentrification (Sayer, 1992). the neighbourhood. For instance, D recently e-mailed me to tell me about a nearby 5.2 Super-gentrification in Brooklyn Heights house which is essentially four walls, no In the survey and interviews, a great many roof etc, with a tree growing up through Brooklyn Heights residents expressed the be- the center and not lived in for over 50 lief that a sea-change had come over the years [that] has just been bought by some- neighbourhood in recent years as a body in the neighborhood for $995 000!!! wave of Wall Street money swept over the All owners on the lane are smiling!!! Heights. Large property companies and de- His bemused tone betrays both his incompre- velopers have been active around the edges hension at the new scale of real estate trans- of the historic preservation district (and out- actions in the neighbourhood and the side of the four census tracts I have focused that, as of a small, 2502 LORETTA LEES neighbouring apartment, he stands to profit Heights is provided by the fact that 65 per from them personally. He continued the story cent of the 254 owner-occupiers who re- in a subsequent e-mail: ported a household value in the long form (SF-3) of the 2000 US Census reported that Yesterday I got a note from the new owner their home was worth more than $1 million. of the falling down house … His note was Converting the nominal values reported in very positive and expressed concern that the census to 1996 inflation-adjusted his work on the [property] would not be using the implicit price deflator for GNP (US too disturbing to residents. Within a few BEA, 2002), shows that the increases in hours of the arrival of the note there was a Brooklyn Heights’ property are ‘real’ (see dumpster in front of his new property and Figure 7). it was being loaded with debris. The time Results from my questionnaire survey pro- between the contract of sale signing and vide further evidence for a dramatic increase the closing was about one week indicating in the value of property in the neighbour- that he paid the purchase price (nearly a hood. The average value of owner-occupied $million) in ! The first dumpster was property reported by the 44 respondents to filled yesterday and there is a new empty this question was $1 406 094 and the median one there today with a few was $1.5 million. These high values are not filling it with rotten etc. This guy surprising given the bias among my respon- works fast. The whole property will be dents towards owner-occupiers of single- and cleaned out in less than a week at this rate two-family properties, which have seen the and he will have a roof on the place before largest increases in value. By contrast, the December (if exterior walls will support average reported purchase price—in most it!). Former owner told me yesterday that cases, many years previously—was new owner has already talked to real estate $381 426. Several long-time residents re- brokers on Montague St. He may just ported in their questionnaire responses plans clean out the building, put on a new roof to cash in on this windfall, either through and try and sell it for a quick profit. Won- outright sale or through second mortgages, to derful to have that kind of money to play finance retirement home purchases else- with. All neighbors are watching with where, while 30 specifically mentioned mak- baited breath … by the next time are ing provision in their wills or through trusts in Brooklyn, we may have a show place to provide legacies for their children from down the street. Its size and design is best their property and other assets. suited for a three lane with a The property value data in the census and snack bar on the second floor!!!! my questionnaire survey are self-reported. Far from levelling-off throughout the 1990s, Actual price data are recorded by the New as might be predicted by stage theory and York City Department of Finance for tax neo-Marxist rent-gap-type explanations on purposes. Despite some gaps in the time-se- the dialectic of disinvestment and reinvest- ries because of data suppression due to in- ment, the value of housing in Brooklyn sufficient sales volume, they provide a better Heights continued the steady climb that be- indication of the scale and unevenness of gan with the first wave of gentrification in residential sales price increases in Brooklyn the 1960s. The average specified value of Heights during the 1990s (see Figure 8). owner-occupied property in Brooklyn Most of the increases have accrued to single- Heights in 2000 was $999 213, up from and two-family houses, the same historic $531 578 in 1990. These mean figures are properties that attracted the first wave of depressed by the large number of relatively gentrifiers in the 1960s and 1970s. As the low-value . A better indication real estate company Corcoran noted in its of the intense valorisation, particularly of Brooklyn Report, during the 1990s Brooklyn one- and two-family homes, in Brooklyn Heights SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2503

led the with some of the largest hood. Pondering the cause of sky-rocketing percentage price increases. The price aver- real estate prices in the neighbourhood, a age for single family townhouses on its journalist writing for the local Brooklyn quaint tree-lined streets topped $2 million Heights Press explained, (Corcoran, 2000, p. 1). There is a simple answer: a lot of people Although there is now some mention of a with a lot of money want to live in down- slow-down in the local property market in town Brooklyn … There is clearly new en- the wake of September 11 and the recent ergy, and new money, fuelling the poor performance of the stock market and the brownstone neighborhoods (Holt, 1999). financial services industries, property values As B., the adult son of pioneer gentrifiers in in Brooklyn Heights are now some of the Brooklyn Heights explained to me, highest in the city. The rapid appreciation of property values You know when the yuppies have moved in Brooklyn Heights during the 1990s is in in because you can hear the sandblasters notable contrast to trends city-wide. As (interview with B., August 2002). Daniels and Schill note from their extensive What is particularly telling about this remark analysis of real estate price trends in New is that he uses the 1980s stereotype of the York City, young urban professional to distance himself Despite all of the recent discussion of and his family socially from more recent rapidly rising real estate prices in the city, arrivals—whom, as a professional lawyer the housing price indices demonstrate that himself—he resembles, at least in occu- as of of 1999, prices for the most pational terms, if not, at least in this particu- part had not regained all of the ground lar case, in terms of annual income. Several they since the last peak in values in respondents to my survey—significantly both the late 1980s (at least in inflation-adjusted long-standing residents of Brooklyn dollars) (Daniels and Schill, 2001, p. 56). Heights—used this same code word to de- scribe recent changes to the neighbourhood. Their analysis, conducted at the community- A teacher and owner of a four-bedroom district scale, based on repeat sales of the complained, same property, indicates that only a few sel- ect areas of the city saw large percentage Preferred [it] in the old days … The price increases. These were largely, but not Heights is too ‘yuppified’ (survey, no. 20) exclusively, in peripheral areas of below-av- While another, a wealthy middle-aged doctor erage real estate values. Similarly Hackworth who grew up in neighbouring Cobble Hill (2001) found both a spatial expansion of noted, gentrification into previously depreciated ar- eas of the city, like Bedford Stuyvesant, and Community less close—more yuppies some evidence of intensification within rein- moved in. Was more connected 20 years vested core areas of the city like Brooklyn ago (survey, no. 72). Heights. There is a widespread perception that the Whether the dramatic increases in house recent in-movers are predominantly wealthy prices in Brooklyn Heights are fuelled di- financial types and hence different from the rectly by Wall Street bonuses or by the feel- long-term residents and original gentrifiers. ing of created by burgeoning One long-time resident complains of investment portfolios in a rising stock mar- ket, residents of Brooklyn Heights have been ‘Wall Street Types’ who have bought quick to attribute this latest wave of super- coops here in the last 10 years are insular gentrification to Wall Street and the influx of and relate to the needs of the upper middle a new type of gentrifier in the neighbour- class and they move to the suburbs once 2504 LORETTA LEES

they have their second child. Us ‘old- in the past two years which I believe will timers’ in the neighborhood are fewer in result in a shift in demographics to a more number now (survey, no. 64). high income resident group, and will dis- courage young families from moving here, Likewise, many of the new in-movers also which would be a detriment (survey, no. see themselves as different from earlier gen- 17). trifiers: I’m part of the new wave Similar concerns about the displacement of young families were also expressed by inter- claimed one (survey, no. 18). Some survey view informants. For instance, a 39-year-old respondents were positive about the impact housewife married to a lawyer and renting of these ‘financifiers’ on the neighbourhood: explained, The level of income per household has We feel that B. H. was ‘discovered’ by risen—new upscale stores, restaurants Manhattanites. Driving rent and properties have opened up. The whole neighbour- higher, keeping ownership out of our hood has benefited by an influx of new reach, for now. Also the private schools tenants and homeowners from the financial are very expensive and lacking space. The businesses moving in (survey, no. 25). price and competitiveness has driven Most survey respondents, however, saw the young families out to the neighboring sub- impact in quite negative terms saying things urbs especially after a second child is born like: and the children become of school age (interview, August 2002). It’s getting too expensive (real estate), soon only the wealthy will be able However, these specific concerns about the to afford living here, then it will be a ghost displacement of young families with children town (survey, no. 9). are not borne out by aggregate census data (Table 2). While there has been a slight Many expressed concerns about the effects decrease in the percentage of Brooklyn of much higher real estate prices and rents on Heights’ residents in the same residence as of young families with children and thus on the 5 years previously (from 56.3 per cent in diversity of the population and the character 1990 to 51.8 per cent in 2000)—indicative, of the neighbourhood. perhaps, of increasing displacement—the ab- The of entire buildings by solute number of children in Brooklyn wealthy financial industry types has dimin- Heights actually increased by 482, or nearly ished the availability of rental properties a third, between 1990 and 2000. It may be (survey, no. 3). that the displacement of some moderate and upper-middle-income families from Brook- Another resident explained: lyn Heights is compensated for by an influx In the 7 years I have lived here, the neigh- of much more wealthy residents drawn to the borhood has remained much the same. neighbourhood, its tree-lined streets, private Physically (development-wise) there has schools and single-family homes, by the been a trend to open more upscale shop- prospect of domestic reproduction. For in- ping venues in the neighborhood. In terms stance, for ‘bigger living quarters to of demographics things have remained have children’ was cited by one 36-year-old much the same. Mostly very young famil- lawyer as the reason he and his partner re- ies who move to the suburbs when chil- cently spent over $1 000 000 buying and ren- dren reach school age, but also a fair ovating a five-bedroom townhouse in the number of older couples with grown chil- neighbourhood (survey, no. 6). dren, and singles in their 20–30s. Real There is some independent statistical evi- estate values have increased significantly dence to support the widespread belief in SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2505

Brooklyn Heights that this latest wave of have sky-rocketed (Figure 9). Even those not super-gentrification has been fuelled by large directly employed in finance relied on stock bonuses and salaries from Wall Street. Not market assets to help finance new purchases surprisingly, given its proximity to Wall in the neighbourhood. Of recent home- Street, substantial numbers of Brooklyn buyers I surveyed, four specifically mention Heights’ residents are employed in the stock sales as one of the ways they raised the finance, insurance and real estate industry, capital to finance their purchases of town- with a further 12 per cent of the labour force houses in Brooklyn Heights. in 2000—or more than a quarter of all those It is important to recognise, however, that employed in professional occupations— whatever the statistical evidence to support working in legal occupations (Table 2; US residents’ concerns about their neighbour- Census, 2002). What is particularly notewor- hood falling sway to super-rich ‘financifiers’, thy about this is that, whereas employment in the very perception of such is a real social the so-called FIRE industry has gone down fact with the power to change the neighbour- in New York City as a whole since its peak hood, irrespective of the ‘softness’ of the in 1987 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, evidence for its ‘reality’. The interesting 2002; Warf, 2000), it actually increased in question, one which Butler and Robson Brooklyn Heights during the 1990s (Table (2001a, p. 11) are asking too, is how these 2). This is important because, during a dec- recent arrivals map onto the narrative of ade of stagnant or even falling real wages in middle-class life in the area. Residents of other industries in the city, wages in finance Brooklyn Heights are almost universal in the

Figure 9. Average real wage rates by industry for New York City, 1992–2000. Source: New York City Rent Guidelines Board (2002). 2506 LORETTA LEES value they put on their neighbourhood’s It is important to recognise the geographi- strong sense of community. Describing her cal and historical specificity of this case. feelings for the area, one resident reflected a Brooklyn Heights is located close to Wall widely held sentiment Street which, over the period of my study, has emerged as the largest of the three major Yes, I have lived in a few places in financial centres of the global economy NYC ϩ other cities. Brooklyn Heights em- (Warf, 2000). Apart, perhaps, from London bodies a sense of community, connected- and some parts of Valley, where the ness for me. I like knowing my neighbors. boom in high-technology stocks has had I the accessibility to the city, yet the some similar effects on local housing costs, fact that we are a bit removed (survey, no. few places have been so closely tied into the 13). flows of global capital. An unprecedented And yet many also see those valued qualities volume of capital, both the personal assets of under threat. Another grimly commented: a new generation of exorbitantly paid Wall Street ‘financifiers’ and the commercial capi- The changes in the neighborhood continue tal of developers seeking to cater to their to be compacted by groups only interested tastes, has poured into Brooklyn Heights and in protecting their personal financial in- begun to reshape the neighbourhood. Al- vestments in living here. Now people are though not entirely unique to Brooklyn moving on and leaving those groups be- Heights—Butler and Robson (2001a) have hind. The changes to come are radical and also found evidence of the regentrification of critical, yet question to ask is why Barnsbury in inner-London—the resulting so few members of the community are processes of super-gentrification are rela- involved, much less care to be, in the tively circumscribed. process. I find that to be indicative of the In response to a number of calls for a true nature of what is really going on here ‘geography of gentrification’ (Ley, 1996, (survey, no. 29). p. 81; Lees, 1994, 2000; Carpenter and Lees, 1995), a growing body of comparative re- 6. Towards a Historical Geography of search, conducted at a variety of scales, is Gentrification seeking to contextualise the geographically In this paper I have examined the case of specific manifestation of gentrification pro- super-gentrification in a particular location. cesses in different places. For instance, the To date, most gentrification scholarship has research of Tim Butler and Gary Robson (for focused on the cultural and economic example, Butler and Robson, 2001b, 2003; changes resulting from the influx of new Robson and Butler, 2001) is comparing a money and people into relatively disinvested number of different gentrifying inner- and often depopulated areas. By contrast, London neighbourhoods to draw out both the super-gentrification takes place in already- commonalities and the diversity of middle- mature, gentrified neighbourhoods. Thus the class resettlement in inner-London. At the phenomenon of super-gentrification presents international scale, researchers have sought something of a challenge both to stage model to contextualise the gentrification of New explanations of gentrification, which pre- York City by comparing it with processes at sume a final end-point to the processes of work in (see Slater, 2003) and Lon- gentrification, and to those neo-Marxist rent- don (see Eade and Mele, 1998). Such com- gap-type explanations, which in their focus parative work is important because it on the dialectic of disinvestment and rein- counters the tendency in gentrification stud- vestment in the city tend to ignore changes in ies to what James Clifford (1997) has called “neighborhoods [that] have already been ‘travelling theory’: the universalising appli- fully gentrified” (Hackworth and Smith, cation of explanations drawn from one 2001, p. 469). specific country/city/neighbourhood to other SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2507 situations without attention to the specific (see Jarvis, 2002; Hanson contexts of both their original conceptualisa- and Pratt, 1995). To put all of this in pro- tion and their operation in other contexts. portion, the arrival of new-wave gentrifiers Indeed, if anything, Neil Smith’s (2002) pro- has not impacted the Heights anywhere near vocative thesis that gentrification is now a as much as the decline in ‘stay-at-home global urban strategy re-emphasises the need moms’. Describing recent changes in the for a more careful examination of the geogra- neighbourhood in which she had lived for phies of gentrification—the contextuality, more than 30 years, one 63-year-old house- spatiality and scale of gentrification. wife explained: In my discussion of super-gentrification, I changes—mostly because life has have tried to identify the geographically changed—more women working, less specific and contingent relations between lo- around to volunteer—more nannies, no ba- cal and global at work in gentrification. I also bysitters, pools. More paid services rather consider the temporality of gentrification and than groups getting together to roll up their the historical continuities and changes in sleeves and work (survey, no. 34). gentrification processes over time within this particular mature gentrified neighbourhood. In interviews, it was stressed over and over As the example of super-gentrification again that it was the wives of pioneer gen- demonstrates, the material manifestation of trifiers that had created the sense of com- gentrification, like the underlying processes munity in Brooklyn Heights. With more responsible for it, has grown and mutated women at work they are not doing neigh- since it was first noticed in cities such as bourhood things. With long working hours London and New York back in the 1950s and and often having to travel away from home 1960s. in association with work, they have no time Gentrification has different histories in dif- to be involved in, or join, neighbourhood ferent cities and countries (see, for example, associations. Their social life is work- rather Lees, 1994; Carpenter and Lees, 1995). This than neighbourhood-orientated. This has im- history matters to the place and its residents. portant implications for the reproduction of On the one hand, super-gentrification is evi- ‘community’ in Brooklyn Heights. This, dence of the power of capital to drive suc- though, is the subject of another paper. cessive waves of redevelopment (although this author is not sure that super-gentrifiers Notes are ‘investing’ in their homes as vehicles for 1. Hackworth and Smith (2001, p. 467) date the profit—rather, it’s about status). On the other onset of post-recession or third-wave gen- hand, however, super-gentrifiers do not seem trification to approximately 1993–94. to share the historic values of first-wave gen- 2. I do not want to discredit stage models of trifiers and their presence is perceived as gentrification per se, for they are very useful explanatory tools, rather I want to discredit something of a disruption to the established the specific assumption of an end-stage in gentrified community. There are tensions be- these models. tween first-wave and third-wave gentrifiers 3. Super-gentrification: a case study of Brook- or the ‘old guard’ and the ‘new wave’, as one lyn Heights, New York City—British Acad- survey respondent put it. This historical ge- emy grant no. SG 301–70. 4. A number of residents actually sent back the ography is also important for how we theor- survey and stated that they were not inter- ise gentrification. Many of the features ‘old ested in filling it out due to September 11. guard’ residents associate with super-gen- 5. For views of the Promenade and other trification, such as increasing disparities of images of Brooklyn Heights, see www. wealth and poverty, and with financifiers, viewsof.com/newyorkcity/brooklynhts.html 6. The last of Brooklyn Heights’ many rooming such as women working in full-time pro- houses were picked off by developers in fessional jobs and nannies replacing stay-at- 1995, after a city-wide moratorium on SRO home mothers, stem from wider economic conversions was lifted. 2508 LORETTA LEES

7. The family was the primary of analysis in American Neighborhoods. for the 1970 Census, rather than the more and Toronto: Books. comprehensive household, which includes all CLIFFORD,J.(1997) Routes: Travel and Transla- people sharing a housing unit. As a result, I tion in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: have focused here on family income to make Harvard University Press. consistent comparisons through time. Analy- CORCORAN (2000) The Corcoran Brooklyn Re- sis of both the per capita data and of the 1990 : Year End 2000 Summary. Corcoran. and 2000 censuses, in which income is re- DANGSCHAT,J.(1991) Gentrification in , ported both for families and for households, in: J. VAN WEESEP and S. MUSTERD (Eds) Ur- suggests that trends in family income hold ban Housing for the Better-Off: Gentrification more broadly for other units of analysis. in , pp. 63–88. : Stedelijke 8. Without this procedure (or requesting a cus- Netwerken. tom retabulation by the Census Bureau), it is DANIELS,G.and SCHILL,M.(2001) State of New impossible to statistically represent super- York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods 2001, gentrification in Brooklyn Heights, as I have rev. edn. New York: Center for Real Estate and done in Figure 6. Urban Policy, School of Law, New York Uni- versity. EADE,J.and MELE,C.(1998) Global processes and customized : the ‘eastern - ise’ of New York and London, Rising East: The References Journal of East London Studies,1,pp. 52–73. ATKINSON,R.(2002) Does gentrification help or GIDDENS,A.(1981) A Contemporary Critique of harm urban neighbourhoods? An assessment of Historical Materialism: Volume 1: Power, the evidence-base in the context of the New Property and the State. London: Macmillan. Urban Agenda. CNR Paper 5 GIDDENS,A.(1984) The Constitution of Society. (www.neighbourhoodcentre.org.uk). Cambridge: Polity Press. GLASS,R.(1964) Aspects of change, in: CENTRE BEAUREGARD,R.(1986) The chaos and com- FOR URBAN STUDIES (Ed.) London: Aspects of plexity of gentrification, in: N. SMITH and P. Change, pp. xiii–xlii. London: McGibbon and WILLIAMS (Eds) Gentrification of the City, Kee. pp. 35–55. , MA: Allen and Unwin. GONEN,A.(2002) Widespread and diverse neigh- BROWNSTONE REVIVAL COMMITTEE (1969) Home- borhood gentrification in , Political buyers to New York City Brownstone Geography, 21, pp. 727–737. Neighborhoods. 230 , New York, HACKWORTH,J.(2001) Inner city real estate rein- NY 10017 (prepared by Lucy Durand Sikes). vestment, gentrification and economic re- BUTLER,T.(1997) Gentrification and the Middle cession in New York City, Environment and Classes. Aldershot: Ashgate. Planning A, 33, pp. 863–880. UTLER OBSON B ,T.and R ,G.(2001a) Negotiating HACKWORTH,J.(2002) Postrecession gen- the new urban economy: work, home and trification in New York City, Urban Affairs school: negotiating middle class life in London. Review, 37, pp. 815–843. Paper presented at the Annual RGS-IBG Con- HACKWORTH,J.and SMITH,N.(2001) The chang- ference, Plymouth. ing state of gentrification, Tijdschrift voor BUTLER,T.and ROBSON,G.(2001b) Social capi- Economische en Sociale Geografie, 92, tal, gentrification and neighbourhood change in pp. 464–477. London: a comparison of three south London HAGEN,J.(1992) An Entangled Bank: The neighbourhoods, Urban Studies, 38, pp. 2145– Origins of Ecosystem Ecology. New 2162. Brunswick: Press. BUTLER,T.and ROBSON,G.(2003) London Call- HAMNETT,C.(1984) Gentrification and residential ing: The Middle Classes and the Remaking of location theory: a review and assessment, in: D. Inner London. Oxford: Berg. T. HERBERT and R. J. JOHNSTON (Eds) Geogra- CARPENTER,J.and LEES,L.(1995) Gentrification phy and the Urban Environment: Progress in in New York, London and : an inter- Research and Application, Vol. 6, pp. 283–319. national comparison, International Journal of London: John . Urban and Regional Research, 19, pp. 286– HANSON,S.and PRATT,G.(1995) Gender, Work 303. (Reprinted in M. Pacione (Ed.) (2002) The and Space. London: Routledge. City: Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences, HOLT,D.(1999) Economy spurred boom here in Vol. 2: Land-use Structure and Change in the 1999, Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill Western City, pp. 544–566. London: Rout- News,23December, p. 12. ledge.) JACKSON,.and MANBECK,J.(1998) (Eds) The CLAY,P.(1979) Neighborhood Renewal: Middle- Neighborhoods of Brooklyn. New Haven: Yale class Resettlement and Incumbent Upgrading University Press. SUPER-GENTRIFICATION IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS 2509

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