There Goes the Neighborhood

Welcome to 'There Goes the Neighborhood'

There Goes the Neighborhood takes an in-depth look at gentrification in Brooklyn and the integral role that race plays in the process. Developers from all over the globe are hunting New York City, looking for deals that will allow them to “revitalize” neighborhoods, and make a few bucks in the process. But to many tenants and homeowners, it feels like a violent shove out of the way, especially for black and brown Brooklynites who have lived here for generations. Add to the drama the fact that th...

Mouth to Ear

Gentrification is something everyone is talking about -- and the conversation is often heated. It's a complicated idea with a range of factors: race, class, history, policy. And of course there is the personal experience that we each bring to the table. Take a walk in Bedford-Stuyvesant with Monica Bailey, a resident of the neighborhood for more than 30 years. She'll show you the home she lost. Monica Bailey was forced to leave her apartment after the owners of the building sold it to a Brooklyn developer who wanted it cleared out. (Richard Yeh/WNYC) Sit in the office of a Brooklyn developer and listen to him work the phones. He'll talk tactics for going after foreclosures. These are the people affected by change -- and the people who are bringing it. Meet them up close and follow the wave of gentrification deeper into Brooklyn.  Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.    

'Brooklyn, We Go Hard'

 East New York is the starting point for Mayor de Blasio's vision to rezone much of the city with a central goal: more affordable housing. So what's the reaction to rezoning from the people who live in East New York? Take a ride down Atlantic Avenue with Joshua Jacobo, a 29-year-old musician and aspiring music producer. Hear what it was like to grow up in the neighborhood -- and what it's like to survive there now, feeling the pressure of rising rents and real estate speculation. Sit in the office with Boaz Gilad, a developer who started working in Brooklyn a decade ago. He'll tell you what it takes to move into East New York this early. The de Blasio administration says it will take years for the neighborhood to develop but the action is already on. Just ask Pastor David Benke and his parishioners at St. Peter's Lutheran Church: unsolicited offers for their homes are pouring in. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Turf Wars

With his first rezoning plan, Mayor de Blasio has declared East New York the place where the city's future begins. But what does East New York's past look like? This week we go back to the founding of East New York in order to understand how it became the place it is today. We meet the people who have been organizing since the 1960s when the neighborhood underwent radical changes. And we'll revisit the blistering summer of 1966, when an 11-year-old black boy named Eric Dean was shot and killed amid the neighborhood's simmering racial tensions. We hear reactions to Dean's death from the street and from city hall. Ron Shiffman talks about the dynamics in the street at the time of Dean's death, as East New York rapidly transformed from a mostly white, working class neighborhood to an under-served community of mostly black and brown New Yorkers neglected by both society and policy.       Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Here’s the Plan

Mayor de Blasio's plan to rezone East New York and 14 other neighborhoods is his administration's way of controlling the fierce gentrification machine that is steamrolling across the city. So what does the zoning plan for East New York actually look like? This week we talk with WNYC's Jessica Gould and City Limits editor Jarrett Murphy to understand the nuts and bolts of the plan. And we go deep into the gentrification machine to see how it works. We meet Elizabeth Grefrath, a young gentrefier in Crown Heights who tells us what it was like to move to the neighborhood just a few years ago. We sit down with big time developers like Boaz Gilad of Brookland Capital and Kunal Chothani of Akelius -- a new player from Sweden -- to understand how they operate in the borough's various markets. And we walk the streets of Flatbush with real estate agent Namane Mohlabane who shows just how complicated -- and personal -- the machine can be.    Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.