The Battle Over 'Billyburg'

The Willamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, is the setting for the latest iteration in the modern day gentrification saga.

2 minute read

February 22, 2007, 7:00 AM PST

By Christian Madera @http://www.twitter.com/cpmadera


"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. Want to know the next move? Toll Brothers, the nation's preeminent McMansion builder, has built a new luxe waterfront condo. Its ad features a preppy and distinctly unpierced blonde and the line: "Williamsburg, All Grown Up."

Anthropologist Neil Smith of City University's Center for Place, Culture and Politics has tracked gentrification with an obsession worthy of Ahab. He's charted the transformation of blue-collar neighborhoods, from Shaw in the District and San Francisco's Mission to the wharfs of London and the canal-lined streets of Amsterdam. This isn't the old block-by-block stuff, the grinding rehab of old rowhouses by scruffy young gentry. He's convinced he's found a new beast.

"We are witnessing the corporate and geographical restructuring of cities -- the wealthy are suburbanizing the center and pushing the poor to the fringes, and it's turbocharged," Smith says. "Artists are disposable -- developers just toss them out in hopes they'll colonize the next 'hot' neighborhood."

Wednesday, February 21, 2007 in The Washington Post

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