Williamsburg, What's Good?

There Goes the Neighborhood

WNYC Studios and KCRW

History, City, Nyc, The, Nation, Documentary, News, Brooklyn, Gentrification, York, Boroughs, Real, Race, New, Estate, Society & Culture, Business News, Wnyc

4.8 • 543 Ratings

🗓️ 6 April 2016

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While politicians and developers strategize how to control the changes in New York, we want find out what gentrification feels like on the ground. How does a tidal wave of money and fast-shifting demographics affect the people who share a neighborhood? What role does race play when it comes to deciding who is included in a community — and who is excluded? We start on the west coast in San Francisco, where Alex Nieto was shot 14 times by police after new white residents reported him as a foreigner in his own neighborhood of Bernal Heights. Jamilah King of Mic.com talks about the gentrification dynamics that were central in Nieto's death. Then we swing back to the epicenter of Brooklyn gentrification: Williamsburg. Writer and humorist Henry Alford talks about the inherently white aesthetic of the Brooklyn hipster, and YouTube personality Akilah Hughes tells her story about a racialized assault that spirals out of control at a well-known bar one Halloween night. And we meet Tranquilina Alvillar from Puebla, Mexico, who's been living in her Williamsburg apartment for 25 years. Her landlord tried everything to get her out — paying her to leave, changing the lock, demolition — but she's still there. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Previously, on There Goes the Neighborhood.
0:05.0	The city actually has been in what is legally known as a housing emergency for decades.
0:16.0	It is the most ambitious, broadest, strongest housing plan of its kind in the country.
0:23.6	A rezoning is when the city changes the rules about what can get built where.
0:30.7	In Brooklyn, over the last five years, you know, depending on the neighborhood,
0:42.4	we're seeing 20% returns year over year.
0:50.0	For developers, it is worth building housing priced for that higher group because the ultimate payoff is going to be that much greater.
0:53.2	The lines are created by the real estate industry.
0:56.8	That's the marketing tool.
0:59.2	So what this plan does is if you're in a rezoned area,
1:02.8	you have to build affordable housing as part of it.
1:06.8	And if no one in your family has ever owned,
1:09.1	it's hard to understand what it means to own.
1:14.6	There goes the neighborhood.
1:15.5	There goes the neighborhood.
1:17.8	There goes the neighborhood.
1:22.9	So New York City has an affordable housing shortage.
1:25.6	But at the same time, money's pouring in from all over the world to buy high-in real estate here because of the huge return on investment.
1:32.6	Perfect Storm does not do justice to the description for what's going on.
1:36.9	I'm Kairite. I'm an editor at the Nation magazine, and my WNYC colleagues and I have explored the nuts and bolts of this gentrification thing,
1:44.6	but we also want to consider how it feels.
1:48.3	We know historically there has been tension when newcomers come into a neighborhood.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and KCRW, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and KCRW and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.