The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back

Brooklyn resident Hymowitz (Manning Up) turns her attention to the rapidly changing landscape of her storied borough. Her aim is to understand how Brooklyn’s reputation swung from “crack-and-mugging” notoriety to being an exemplar of the thriving “postindustrial, creative city.” After a swift historical survey, the book breaks into chapter-length case studies of neighborhoods, each serving as a set piece through which the author explores how the “creative destruction” of gentrification brings new residents and businesses into a once-struggling area. She introduces white middle-class families, hipster artists, entrepreneurs, black returnees who grew up in Brooklyn, those who never left, and Chinese and West Indian immigrant communities. The tone of the book champions new Brooklyn, described by the author as “a splendid population of postindustrial and creative-class winners,” and the author pays only cursory attention to other residents. When struggling Brooklynites do appear, they are too often caricatured using tired stereotypes (e.g., “smallpox-infected natives,” Fujianese immigrants who “work like dogs”). The public policies and corporate muscle that have helped to determine who does and does not benefit from the Brooklyn’s new prosperity remain underexamined. Readers with an interest in the subject would do better to read Suleiman Osman’s The Invention of Brownstone Brooklyn. (Jan.)