Is NYC losing its character?

Radio interview with two of the more pessimistic contributors to The Suburbanization of New York. It is interesting to learn that in Greenpoint, a blue collar Brooklyn neighborhood bordered to the north by Queens and to the west by the East River home prices rose 65% in 2006 (yes that's in one year, not five or ten years). The guests on the program predict that eventually the Bronx and Staten Island, which so far have remained more affordable, will also become strictly white collar. A caller points out that immigrants are starting to bypass the city and move straight to the more affordable suburbs citing several NJ towns as examples. In an earlier program guitarist David Bromberg related that when he decided to return to the northeast from Chicago he found NYC unaffordable and moved to Wilmington, DE instead. I imagine quite a few New Yorkers who have to relocate for school or work will find a few years later that returning to NYC is impossible on all but the most affluent budgets.

Is NYC losing its character?

Radio interview with two of the more pessimistic contributors to The Suburbanization of New York. It is interesting to learn that in Greenpoint, a blue collar Brooklyn neighborhood bordered to the north by Queens and to the west by the East River home prices rose 65% in 2006 (yes that's in one year, not five or ten years). The guests on the program predict that eventually the Bronx and Staten Island, which so far have remained more affordable, will also become strictly white collar. A caller points out that immigrants are starting to bypass the city and move straight to the more affordable suburbs citing several NJ towns as examples. In an earlier program guitarist David Bromberg related that when he decided to return to the northeast from Chicago he found NYC unaffordable and moved to Wilmington, DE instead. I imagine quite a few New Yorkers who have to relocate for school or work will find a few years later that returning to NYC is impossible on all but the most affluent budgets.