South Slope Gentrification: Inevitable Fact of Life?

It’s not difficult to see the changes in South Slope that have occurred over the past several years. Dollar stores and bodegas have become pubs and banks, condos now inhabit areas where wood frame homes once stood, and according to Voices of New York, long-time residents are finding themselves priced out of a neighborhood that they no longer recognize.

The corner of 17th Street and Fourth Avenue is a microcosm of the rapidly gentrifying South Slope area in Brooklyn, where long-time residents are being priced out. In the past decade, there has been a 51 percent increase in the white population in the South Slope, accompanied by a 33 percent drop in the number of Hispanics, according to the U.S. Census.

This scene has played out over and over again across the world, so it’s not surprising to find it happening so close to home. Is an ever evolving neighborhood just a fact of life, though, or something that needs to be reigned in before multicultural communities become GAP infested clones?

Photo via Skyler Reid/Voices of New York