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There’S Nothing Here: Tenure, Attachment, And Changing Perceptions In Gentrifying Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Sara Martucci

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Depending on the audience, the term “gentrification” conjures images of pristine condos, fancy restaurants, dive bars full of hipsters, or eviction notices. This qualitative study examines the divergent perspectives of existing and former residents in a gentrifying neighborhood. For most of the twentieth century Williamsburg, Brooklyn was a working class neighborhood and it served as an ethnic enclave to several waves of (im)migrants. The neighborhood struggled through a period of deindustrialization, divestment, and high crime through the 1980s, when it began to gentrify. Initially networks of artists and students started moving into the area, but it soon became a destination …