I'm looking for an apartment in New York, which is generally not a very fun experience for a number of reasons. Aside from being reminded how little space you can get for your dollar here, I'm reminded that I am a gentrifier.
When I moved to Prospect Heights 3 years ago, it was already somewhat-gentrified. Now it is completely gentrified to the point where Nate Silver would probably like it (cheap shot, I know). However, now that I have to find a place that's ~33% cheaper, I'm looking at neighborhoods that are closer to the cutting edge of gentrification.
Realtors love gentrification. Rents going up mean they're making more money. More affluent people moving to a neighborhood means even more affluent people will move there eventually. And because they assume I want to live in a gentrified neighborhood, there are various ways Realtors will try to signal this information.
They have to talk in code, because what they're really trying to say ("More White people are moving here.") is offensive and possibly illegal. So, they'll say things like "the neighborhood is improving" or "lots of young professionals are moving here". But the one thing they mention more than anything else? Coffee shops. "There are a couple new coffee shops around the corner" or "down the block" or "nearby" is something I've noticed Realtors will repeat and repeat and repeat to signal gentrification, whether or not these mythical coffee shops actually exist.
So I decided to take a look at where coffee shops actually are in Brooklyn. Not surprisingly, they correspond pretty well with gentrification.
Above is a Google Map of Brooklyn where I searched for "coffee", "coffee shop", and "cafe". (Here is a screenshot if the iframe is broken.) Coffee shops are concentrated mostly in more affluent areas of Brooklyn (Park Slope, BoCoCa, Brooklyn Heights, Fort Greene, etc.). As you move east, into poorer areas on the edge of gentrification, there are fewer.
Above is a map of Brooklyn for 1BRs under $1300. (Here is a screenshot if the iframe is broken.) I've chosen $1300 somewhat arbitrarily, but that's the range I'm looking for right now and I'm guessing that price for a 1BR is what Realtors think gentrifiers will pay, while being too high a rent for the poorer folks living in these neighborhood already. Most of these units are in the areas east of the "Coffee House Belt" (Crown Heights, Bed Stuy, Bushwick) where gentrifiers such as myself are looking to move. Most of the units that are in areas with high coffee house concentrations (like Park Slope) are probably fake listings or closet-sized units.
Anyways, there's no real policy suggestion here. No social justice analysis. I just wanted to see how the Coffee-House-Around-The-Corner promise so many Realtors make matched up with the data.
