Change (You Can't Stop It)

I got into this conversation today with a friend of mine, Genaro. He's an lifelong Nuyorican - born, raised and currently residing in Brooklyn. He seemed to have a great deal of apprehension regarding how much the city has changed. I guess, at one point, only Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope were the yuppie areas of North Brooklyn. But now the spillover is trickling into areas such as Crown Heights, Flatbush, Bed-Stuy and even East New York. From what I heard, in the 1980s, you would never see yuppies, or any white person for that matter in these badass areas. Thinking back to my college days at Howard University, I told G that many of the people I knew who were born & raised in NYC had moved elsewhere. The same way I was born & raised in Boston and have no plans to return, they feet the same way about NYC.

People move around alot in the the USA. Particularly in cities, people born and raised move away to other cities when they become adults in search of jobs, opportunities, etc. I know alot of NYers who moved to Dallas, LA and Atlanta, for instance. Some NYers who I met in Washington, DC stayed there after college. The point being, with every generation a city like NY will dramatically change. One group will move out and the next group will move in. Right now, many of the Russian, Chinese and West Indians who moved to Brooklyn in the 70s and 80s have left. They've moved to upstate NY, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut and other states. They are being replaced by Indians, Middle Easterners, Mexicans and even white people moving from Manhattan in search of cheaper rent.

Its the way cities work. I lived in downtown Brooklyn for 9 years. First in Boerum Hill, then in Prospect Heights. When I moved to Boerum Hill in 1996 it was about 50% white and 50% black/Puerto Rican. There were alot of vacant lots, parking lots and antique shops. By the time I moved outta Boerum Hill in 2004, it was 95% percent white. All you saw is white couples with strollers, coffee shops, yard sales, people planting flowers... I took a walk down my old block about a week ago and every vacant lot and parking lot has been built on - condos, co-ops, apartments, offices proliferate. Its even hard for me to believe and I've only been away for about 2 years!

You can stop change. You just have to accept it. Brooklyn 2006 is not Brooklyn 1986. Its a different world. There are some cities that, perhaps, change slow. NYC seems to change fast. That old borough of kids running the streets, playing stickball and going to Dodgers games is dead. There are few people from that era still living in Brooklyn. Some parts have remained relatively similar, but by far and wide its a totally different place. Yeah, rents are outrageous. But this is a free market economy and there's virtually nothing that can be done to decrease demand for housing. In the next 30 years, they estimate that 1 million more people will move to NYC. If that's the case, you won't be able to be poor and live in this city. By then, they'll probably tear down all the projects or convert them to condos. It just seems like that were things are going. Sorry, Genaro... don't wanna come off as cold, but you can't stop the change.