Where and when ‘white flight‘ occurred in North Brooklyn, it was immediately preceded by Puerto Ricans stemming from the Great Migration. Only recently but still tepidly has ‘white flight’ been included in media reports on “Williamsburg before” or in the chain of causation leading to the gentrification of North Brooklyn in all accounts. Yet even a term as well-explored in sociology and history as ‘white flight’ can mislead as to the actual conditions in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at the time. ‘White flight’ from North Brooklyn did not result in proportionate increases in home ownership by Puerto Ricans. Rather, it increased absentee ownership of real property that persisted to 1979 when gentrification began as the whites in “white flight” maintained ownership. Racism reinforced the remoteness of their consideration for tenants and former neighbors established by their absence. Bank redlining prevented transfers even in those unusual instances where white homeowners were willing to sell their properties to Puerto Ricans. Race clearly factored as values plummeted. Arson and insurance fraud became the most common reason for condemned and ‘abandoned’ properties, but you would never know this reading all the accounts of “Williamsburg before.”
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 19:52:28 +0000
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