Hipsters are driving low-income Hispanics out of Brooklyn
Hipsters are driving low-income Hispanics out of Brooklyn
By Carl Campanile
November 6, 2017 | 12:21am
The hipsters who have taken over Brooklyn have done so largely at the expense of lower-income Hispanics, a new report claims.
The Hispanic population is still increasing citywide — from 2,428,756 in 2013 to 2,489,090 in 2016, the analysis by the National Institute for Latino Policy notes.
But in Brooklyn, the number of Hispanic residents has halted and even started to decline.
The Hispanic population in Brooklyn has dropped from 513,242 in 2015 to an estimated 505,183 last year — a 1.6 percent reduction, NILP president Angelo Falcón said.
Falcón claims that escalating housing costs — spurred by gentrification — have driven lower-income Hispanics out of once predominately Latino neighborhoods of Bushwick, Williamsburg and Sunset Park. Puerto Ricans, in particular, had a strong presence in those areas.
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An economic report on neighborhoods conducted by city Comptroller Scott Stringer in April backs up Falcón’s claim: the Hispanic population in Williamsburg plummeted 16 percent from 2000 to 2015.
In Bushwick, the Latino population shrunk by 13 percent over the 15-year span while the white population increased 610 percent from 3,207 to 22,776. Meanwhile the number of Hispanics fell 13 percent in Sunset Park.
“This provides a disturbing window into the possible future of the city’s Latino population if the city’s affordable-housing program does not take into account community calls for much deeper affordability than is currently being planned,” Falcón argues.
The study noted that the percentage of Latinos owning their own homes is 16 percent, half the citywide average of 32 percent. Latinos account for only 12.5 percent of all homeowners in the city.
Falcón said Gentrification “represents an existential threat to the future of the city’s Latino population.”
So, where are Hispanics moving to? According to the comptroller’s neighborhood report, Latinos are gravitating to working-class neighborhoods, mostly in the outer-boroughs.
From 2000 to 2015, the Hispanic population surged 102 percent on the Rockaway Peninsula, from 17,107 to 34,620; doubled from 14,120 to 29,049 in Bensonhurst, jumped 85 percent in Central Harlem and 78 percent in the Port Richmond section of Staten Island, home to a burgeoning Mexican-immigrant population.
The Latino presence also increased nearly 50 percent in the Queens communities of Ridgewood, Glendale, Middle Village and Richmond Hill/Woodhaven and through nearly all sections of The Bronx.
In Long Island City/Astoria in Queens, the Latino population fell 10 percent from 51,963 to 46,899 since 2000.
http://nypost.com/2017/11/06/hipster...t-of-brooklyn/
