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Southern Brooklyn is full of transplants. . . from the former USSR. Vadim, Artyom, and Anastasia don't exactly make the neighborhood inviting to non-Russian speakers. They can be a very insular community w/their own tribal conflicts and grudges from the old country.
That's the dumbest thing I heard in a while. Southern BK isn't remotely all Russian speaking, though they do form a significant majority in Brighton Beach, but even these 'Russian' speakers come from very diverse backgrounds: some are Muslims from Tajikistan, some are Jews from Odessa, some are Tatars from Crimea.
Even so, those neighborhoods in South Brooklyn are far safer and more livable than anything in Crown Heights, Brownsville, East New York, you get the picture. In fact, it's almost funny how some of the most desirable hoods in Queens and Brooklyn just so happen to have a lot of "Russian speakers"
i'll never understand why transplants don't move to southern brooklyn for cheaper rent and generally safer neighborhoods in exchange for maybe a longer commute to manhattan instead of these dodgy neighborhoods.
It's because many transplants are fixated on the lifestyle embodied by Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bushwick and much of surrounding North Brooklyn. They want the old row houses and the J/L/M/Z trains. The slightly "gritty" and "urban" vibe with edgy nightclubs and all varieties of LGBTQIA around. Anything that isn't north Brooklyn just isn't hip/cool enough for them; that's why they all thumb their nose at "safe" boring neighborhoods. How dare someone suggest a transplant move to Dyker Heights, Forest Hills or *gasp* Middle Village?!
Southern Brooklyn is full of transplants. . . from the former USSR. Vadim, Artyom, and Anastasia don't exactly make the neighborhood inviting to non-Russian speakers. They can be a very insular community w/their own tribal conflicts and grudges from the old country.
Immigrants and transplants aren't the same. The only ones who try to conflate the two are transplants and those who try to make intellectually dishonest arguments.
Immigrants and transplants aren't the same. The only ones who try to conflate the two are transplants and those who try to make intellectually dishonest arguments.
Not an intellectually dishonest argument. It is a joke.
That's the dumbest thing I heard in a while. Southern BK isn't remotely all Russian speaking, though they do form a significant majority in Brighton Beach, but even these 'Russian' speakers come from very diverse backgrounds: some are Muslims from Tajikistan, some are Jews from Odessa, some are Tatars from Crimea.
Even so, those neighborhoods in South Brooklyn are far safer and more livable than anything in Crown Heights, Brownsville, East New York, you get the picture. In fact, it's almost funny how some of the most desirable hoods in Queens and Brooklyn just so happen to have a lot of "Russian speakers"
I'll concede the 2nd point and even part of the first. Those are family and working class neighborhoods. The inhabitants don't have time for art galleries, pet massage parlors, vegan granola yoga studios, and kombucha breweries. Meanwhile southern Brooklyn includes Coney Island which is full of housing projects with large numbers of Blacks and Hispanics.
That's the dumbest thing I heard in a while. Southern BK isn't remotely all Russian speaking, though they do form a significant majority in Brighton Beach, but even these 'Russian' speakers come from very diverse backgrounds: some are Muslims from Tajikistan, some are Jews from Odessa, some are Tatars from Crimea.
Even so, those neighborhoods in South Brooklyn are far safer and more livable than anything in Crown Heights, Brownsville, East New York, you get the picture. In fact, it's almost funny how some of the most desirable hoods in Queens and Brooklyn just so happen to have a lot of "Russian speakers"
Well, they did get the former USSR part right to some extent and it definitely is a significant population of those though the degree to which they speak Russian seems to vary quite a bit especially with the younger people. It's still not a very complete picture as it seems a lot of south Asians, Arabs, Mexican/Central American, Chinese, and Turks have immigrated there as well and there are still a lot of people living there that aren't recent immigrants.
South Brooklyn also gets to be a confusing term because there's quite a bit that refer to South Brooklyn as just historic South Brooklyn whose demographics are a lot yuppie / transplant generally.
Regardless, it's not that easy to go from Southern Brooklyn to the music scene that the OP is referencing. She's pretty explicitly stating the importance of that to her, so I didn't recommend it as I normally would if someone was looking for more affordable housing in quiet and safe neighborhoods in Brooklyn. I do think the Ridgewood, Maspeth, Middle Village, and Glendale mentions as alternatives to Cypress Hills are very reasonable though and she can potentially find something not too far (in relation to cab costs or transit, walk, or bike time) to North Brooklyn, within her budget, and with decent amount of space for the price.
The western third, maybe half, or so of Crown Heights doesn't quite belong in the same grouping as Brownsville and East New York not including Cypress Hills today. Crown Heights is a weird neighborhood as the demographics vary a lot. The western third or so that's north of Eastern Parkway is now an extension of Prospect Heights and bougier bits of Clinton Hill/Bed-Stuy which does have a lot of higher income/wealth residents and is quite expensive with people who bought a decade or earlier probably high-fiving their palms raw and has been pushing eastward. Nostrand Avenue still has a Caribbean presence, but that's pretty intermixed and that's now getting pretty close to the Orthodox community at the center of Crown Heights who also seem to be pushing eastwards where there's even a single solitary kosher cafe on Utica Avenue where there definitely wasn't one on that strip a decade ago. East of that though is Weeksville which is pretty rundown and thus relatively inexpensive. It seems to have a large West Indian population, but unlike some other West Indian neighborhoods, it feels kind of desolate and just overall dumpier. None of Crown Heights is easy to get to that music scene the OP is stating though easier than Southern Brooklyn and Weeksville to me seems more decrepit than Cypress Hills which is much easier to get to. I enjoy screwing around and going to different parts of the city and trying new things, but the few times I've been in Weeksville didn't exactly leave an impression that it's all that much fun on any level.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 04-01-2022 at 11:01 AM..
i'll never understand why transplants don't move to southern brooklyn for cheaper rent and generally safer neighborhoods in exchange for maybe a longer commute to manhattan instead of these dodgy neighborhoods.
They've been trained in white guilt in college and they figure if they get mugged or worse they deserve it.
They've been trained in white guilt in college and they figure if they get mugged or worse they deserve it.
I don't think that's much of a factor compared to the continual march along the train lines from nightlife / restaurants and cohorts as people keep coming in and rents keeps increasing. You even get non-white international tourists coming in for nightlife in North Brooklyn as well as pretty large corporate operations especially in tech and media and that's been going on for at least a decade now. It sure as hell isn't American liberal arts degree'd transplants deep in debt working in social services that are springing en masse for those condos and luxury rentals or qualifying for the loans and general capital needed to open frou frou businesses.
Not an intellectually dishonest argument. It is a joke.
It may not be exactly intellectually dishonest, but at least poorly informed, argument. The kind of an immigrant that lives in the boroughs has almost universally immigrated into the US due to some intolerable situation in the home country, not for seeking thrill in a trendy place. The new Ukrainian-Americans that you will soon see in some number will not be immigrating in order to seek trendy nightlife . Immigration is prety much always a traumatic business, which people do not pursue unless they are forced to (I am an immigrant, so I have some first-hand knowledge about it). The psycho-profile of such an immigrant is that he/she is more or less poor, and is striving to work, live peacefully, and provide for the family.
There is a certain % of immigrants (often illegal) who are in the US in order to pursue crime, or form gangs hostile to other ethnic groups. While the number of these is not trivial, it is incomparably smaller than the number of those described in the first paragraph. Immigrants overall are statistically significantly less likely to commit crime than American-born individuals.
The NYC middle class keeps regenerating almost exclusively from immigrants. In summary, the areas of NYC that still combine relative cheapness (or at least affordability) and safety are areas heavily populated by immigrants. Such areas do not tend to be thrilling or trendy, though (but they are connected with thrilling & trendy by public transportation. I'd take that option if I were the OP).
It may be not exactly intellectually dishonest, but at least poorly informed, argument. The kind of an immigrant that lives in the boroughs has almost universally immigrated into the US due to some intolerable situation in the home country, not for seeking thrill in a trendy place. The new Ukrainian-Americans that you will soon see in some number will not be immigrating in order to seek trendy nightlife . Immigration is prety much always a traumatic business, which people do not pursue unless they are forced to (I am an immigrant, so I have some first-hand kniwledge about it). The psycho-profile of such an immigrant is that he/she is more or less poor, and is striving to work, live peacefully, and provide for the family.
There is a certain % of immigrants (often illegal) who are in the US in order to pursue crime, or form gangs hostile to other ethnic groups. While the number of these is not trivial, it is incomparably smaller than the number of those described in the first paragraph. Immigrants overall are statistically significantly less likely to commit crime than American-born individuals.
The NYC middle class keeps regenerating almost exclusively from immigrants. In summary, the areas of NYC that still combine relative cheapness (or at least affordability) and safety are areas heavily populated by immigrants. Such areas do not tend to be thrilling or trendy, though (but they are connected with thrilling & trendy by public transportation. I'd take that option if I were the OP).
I would love for you to get the stats for the bold'd part. My hunch is that you'd need to have a pretty broad definition of immigrants to include first and second generation Americans and consider people from other states to be immigrants for the "almost exclusively" bit to hold true, but I'm not declaring this with any certainty. Bring the stats.
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