Poll: Is Dyker Heights Gentrifying?

Three years after an article in the New York Times’ “Living in” real estate feature called Dyker a “place that people deeply care for” in a borough that, a former resident told the Times, “has grown almost too popular for its own good”, how do you feel the neighborhood has changed?

The resident they interviewed, Amie Manto, called out Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn, and even Bay Ridge for being “way too pricey for the non-six-figure-salary set” and being full of “cocktail lounges and artisanal boutiques.”

Dyker Heights, however, is virtually absent from the gentrification discussion impacting large swaths of northern and eastern Brooklyn. Indeed, southern Brooklyn is infrequently if ever mentioned — many mainstream media outlets and Northern Brooklyn residents often don’t even know where the area is.

The dictionary definition of gentrification is, according to Merriam-Webster, “the process of renewal and rebuilding accompanying the influx of middle-class or affluent people into deteriorating areas that often displaces poorer residents.” People often use the word, however, to refer to any increase in white people and property values in a neighborhood.

Dyker Heights, as well as much of southern Brooklyn (with the exception of Coney Island) never really saw the dark days of property disinvestment and white flight that the rest of the borough did. Thus, the soaring property values in Williamsburg and Bushwick are seen as a resurgence, but Dyker’s sky-high asking prices have more or less always been the norm.

Still, though, as rents continue to increase in the rest of Brooklyn, out-priced residents are finally “discovering” areas like Dyker Heights, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst as they desperately seek affordable housing.

So, what do you think? Vote below.

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