The Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn

In this book, Desena examines the ways that working class residents and incoming gentrifiers form parallel cultures within the shared physical spaces of their community. Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn touches on issues familiar to anyone who has lived in a multi-class or multi-ethnic community, while offering new perspectives on the ways that such communities develop and maintain the boundaries of social segregation.

While most studies on gentrification focus almost exclusively on its causes and consequences through an examination of housing, class conflict, and the displacement of residents, this book analyzes the process of gentrification. Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn examines the ways in which the established working-class and lower-income residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn remain socially segregated from the incoming gentrifiers, with both groups forming parallel cultures within the shared physical spaces of the community. Desena broadens the typical analyses of gentrification to include the grass roots dynamics which create social class relations that lead to residential segregation created by social class relations. Drawing upon areas traditionally under represented in urban sociology, including families, women, children, and local institutions other than housing, this study explores the ways in which working-class residents, in the course of their everyday lives, negotiate change in their neighborhood and dissimilarity with their new (gentry) neighbors. Gentrification and Inequality in Brooklyn touches on issues familiar to anyone who has lived in a multi-class or multi-ethnic community, while offering new perspectives on the ways that such communities develop and maintain the boundaries of social segregation.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Gentrification, Segregation, and Negotiation in the City
Chapter 3 The Neighborhood of Greenpoint
Chapter 4 Neighborhood Demographics and Change
Chapter 5 Gentrification in Everyday Life
Chapter 6 Gentrification and Local Schools: Women Shape the Urban Landscape
Chapter 7 Soccer Moms in the City
Chapter 8 Views of Manhattan for Sale: Rezoning for Residential Development on the East River
Chapter 9 Conclusions: What it Means for the Future of the City