Priced Out of My Childhood Home (NY Times)

[inanna]

MAY 13, 2016

When Carolyn Burke landed a teaching job nearly three years ago at a charter school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, she saw it as an opportunity to move back to her childhood neighborhood.

<snip>

Ms. Burke had been living in Harlem, paying $1,400 a month for a two-bedroom walk-up. In Crown Heights, a broker showed her a two-bedroom, for $3,500 a month, so small that it did not have a full-size oven. She applied unsuccessfully for other apartments.

<snip>

Ms. Burke is among a generation of young New Yorkers who grew up in neighborhoods that have rapidly gentrified. When they were children, their corners of the city were dismissed by wealthier — and usually white — New Yorkers. But now that their neighborhoods are hot prospects, these young people are struggling to stay, and wondering what comes next.

<snip>

In Crown Heights, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment jumped 47 percent between 2010 and 2015 to $1,877 a month, while the increase for Brooklyn overall was 29 percent, at $2,607 a month. And in Harlem, rents for one-bedrooms in non-doorman buildings rose 36 percent during the same period, to $2,149 a month, twice the 18 percent increase to $3,138 for Manhattan overall, according to an analysis of data provided by MNS, a real estate firm.

cont'd...

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/realestate/priced-out-of-my-childhood-home.html?_r=0