abstract gentrification is often equated with the a new...
TRANSCRIPT
A New Gentrification? A Case Study of the Russification of Brighton Beach, New York
Keith Brown Undergraduate Student
Elvin Wyly Professor
Department of Geograph y Rutgers University 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue Piscataway NJ 08854-8054
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ABSTRACT
Gentrification is often equated with the residential and consumption preferences of young, white, native-born professionals. The link between gentrification and "yuppies," however, does not seem adequate to capture the complexity oftrends currently underway in many city neighborhoods. In this paper, census data and fieldwork are utilized to develop a case study of Russian immigration and neighborhood revitalization in Brighton Beach, New York City. " Russification" has revi talized housing demand and retail activity by altering the class composition of the neighborhood, while also increasing inequality and inducing displacement similar to that observed in other gentrifying districts. Nevertheless, important cultural and policy-related factors distinguish immigrant-driven neighborhood change from more conventional forms of gentrification.
KEY WORDS: gentrification, immigration, land values, minorities, urban revitaliza tion, New York City.
INTRODUCTION
Years ago, the popular movie Brighton Beach Memoirs dramatized the lives of a middle class Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. The film's vivid images of neighborhood life presented an accurate portrayal of the place in the 1950s, when it was a solid middle-class Jewish community. But in subsequent years white flight and suburbanization took their toll. Poverty and disinvestment spread throughout Brighton Beach and surrounding areas until the mid-1980's, when a resurgence of foreign immigration brought waves of new arrivals to the United States. Russian immigrants poured into Brighton Beach, tightening the housing market and displacing poor residents. The influx dramatically transformed what had become a poor workingclass area, and today Brighton Beach is anchored by a healthy commercial strip and a booming real estate market. Now the images of Brighton Beach Memoirs are distant urban history; for a cinematic
portrayal of the mixture of new Russians and working class African Americans, we would have to include titles such as Little Odessa, or Spike Lee's He Got Game.
The process that transformed Brighton Beach is gentrification. Gentrification is defined as " a process of neighborhood regeneration by relatively affluent incomers, who displace lower income groups and invest in the improvement of homes the quality of which has deteriorated. Such neighborhoods are usually accessible to the city center and comprise substantial older dwellings" . . . (Johnston, 1994, p. 216) . Gentrification is an important urban process because it acts as a counter force to suburbanization, and reverses the classical invasion-succession processes. Thus middle- and uppermiddle class households displace lowerincome families, as individuals or insti tutions invest money in neighborhoods that have been artificially devalued by metropolitan-wide forces of suburbanization and uneven development (Smith, 1996). Gentrification has attracted widespread attention from geographers and other social scientists, but until recently most studies have focused on the role of white, young, upwardly-mobile professionals. Indeed, after Newsweek famously crowned 1984 as "The Year of the Yuppie" (Newsweek, 1984), an everbroader range of seemingly new economic, social, and political trends were linked to this hybrid category that was "a mixture of age, address, and class." (Ehrenreich, 1989, p. 196). Gentrification, in the eyes of both admirers and detractors, quickly became inseparable from the predilections of the yuppie. "Yuppification," however, does not seem adequate to describe the complex neighborhood change underway in new immigrant enclaves such as Brighton Beach .
This paper analyses how immigration shapes the gentrification process. Our purpose is to determine whether and how immigrant-driven gentrification differs from conventional processes of "yuppification ." We examine changes in the population and local businesses in Brighton Beach since the 1980s and we contrast these changes with trends docu-
mented in Park Slope and the Lower East Side, well -known areas of gentrification elsewhere in New York City (Lees and Bondi, 1995). We begin with a brief review of the geographical literature on gentrification, and then we turn to an examination of demographic trends in Brooklyn and Brighton Beach.
THEORIES OF GENTRIFICATION AND DEGENTRIFICATION
Gentrification is a prominent theme in urban geography, with literally hundreds of articles written on the subject since the 1970s (Smith and Herod, 1991). Histori cally, most of the literature emphasizes the demand-side aspects of the process. Johnson (1983), for example, identified six interdependent causal factors. The maturation of the post-World War II baby boom increased household formation rates, and intersected in growth in single, divorced, and childless households during the 1960s and 1970s. Rising construction costs and inflation priced first-time homebuyers out ofthe suburban housing market. Simultaneous changes in the culture at large led to a growing dissatisfaction with suburban living, even as rising fuel costs provided powerful incentives for people to choose homes closer to work. These trends reinforced the historical appeal of cities, and offered attractive investment potential in selected urban neighborhoods. Finally, Johnson (1983) emphasized the importance of office construction in the downtown core for attracting residential gentrification; this trend accelerated greatly in the 1980s (see also Berry, 1985).
Subsequent research on gentrification added new insights on the complexity of the process, and fueled debates on the relative importance of different causal factors. Clark (1985) and others offered "stage" theories, in which neighborhood change begins with a few households in search of unique or historic homes in an environment where alternative lifestyles are tolerated. Within a few years, however, succession accelerates as speculators recognize the profit potential of the neighborhood and as "do-it-yourself" renovators are replaced by middle-class
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families who regard their homes primarily as investments. This stage begins to displace lower-income residents in the area, as landlords are able to increase rents, lending institutions are more will ing to make loans to prospective buyers, and rental units are converted to condominiums or cooperative ownership. The third and final stage is marked by consolidation: gentrifiers commonly seek historic district designation in order to enhance property values and exclude unwanted land uses; local government often increases the quality of public services provided to the neighborhood; and middle-income residents (who initially displaced low-i ncome households) may themselves be displaced by wealthier newcomers.
Geographical research on gentrification expanded rapidly in the 1980s, as speculative downtown office construction fueled the revival of neighborhoods in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, D.C, and other old cities that had suffered from the deindustrialization of the Northeast. The collapse of booming property markets in the recession of the early 1990s, however, raised questions about the continued significance of gentrification. Bou rne (1993) offered a perceptive critique of the gentrification literature, questioning the empirical measures used to document the process as well as the significance for metropolitan income inequality. Based on a case study of neighborhoods in the Toronto metropolitan region, Bourne demonstrated that gentrification contributed relatively little to central-city income change, and was dwarfed by the upgrading of existing elite and middle class areas as well as the redevelopment of "greyfield " nonresidentialland . Moreover, Bourne (1993) argued that the postwar circumstances driving gentrification represented a unique historical event, and that the 1990s were witnessing a " post-gentrification era. "
GENTRIFICATION AND DEGENTRIFICATION IN NEW YORK CITY
Bourne's commentary inaugurated a spirited debate on the future of downtown redevelopment, neighborhood re-
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vitalization, and the broader prospects for central city housing markets (for example, Smith, 1996, pp. 210-211) . Bourne's analysis has been challenged by critics who argue that recessionary slumps are essential to the gentrification process, and in any event the longrunning economic expansion revived scores of central -city housing markets and relegated the " degentrification" debate to the sidelines.
New York City provides an illuminating case study of the gentrification and degentrification debates. An overheated housing market was paralyzed in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash and the subsequent recession in the early 1990s, prompting sober re-evaluations of the city's recent adventures:
In some corners ofthe city, the experts say, gentrification may be remembered, along with junk bonds, stretch limousines, and television evangelism, as just another grand excess of the 1980s .... As the dust settles, we can see that the areas that underwent dramatic turnarounds had severe limitations. Rich people are simply not going to live next to public housing (Lueck, 1991, p. 1 [cited in Lees and Bondi, 1995.])
Lees and Bondi (1995) analyze the similarities and contrasts between neighborhood change in two districts of New York City. In the Lower East Side the recession of the early 1970s led to a wave of forfei tures on tax-delinquent properties, and in desperation to return parcels to the tax rolls the city sold them at deep discounts. Simultaneously the city's rise as a global financial and investment center enhanced the attractiveness of the Lower East Side, only two miles north of the expanding fi nancial district. The result has been more than two decades of vigorous gentrification activity, beginning with a trickle of artists from nearby Greenwich Village and Soho. These first arrivals were subsequently threatened with displacement along with poorer residents when higherincome professionals began moving into new and renovated upscale units. The
speed with which the process took place in the context of a tight and polarized housing market was dramatized by a series of uprisings in Tomkins Square Park in 1988, ignited by attempts to evict the homeless from a public space now surrounded by elite condos and co-ops (Smith, 1996).
Lees and Bondi 's (1995) second case study is Park Slope, originally a prosperous professional enclave that declined in the 1930s and became affordable to Irish and Italian-born working class families. A turnaround began in the early 1970s, and the area became increasingly attractive to managers and professionals commuting to Manhattan. In contrast to the Lower East Side, however, the process was slower and involved less severe instances of displacement. Moreover, single women and nontraditional households have played an important role in the neighborhood's revival. Lees and Bondi's (1995) study demonstrated the local specificity of gentrification among different neighborhoods in the same city, echoing earlier arguments by Beauregard (1986, 1990).
This review of the gentrification literature demonstrates the breadth of research on the subject. Nevertheless, debate persists on the importance of the process, where theory predicts it will occur (and where it actually does), and who is responsible for it. Moreover, studies continue to define gentrification-usually implicitly-in terms of white, upper middle class professionals. The literature, therefore, continues to emphasize the stereotype of the Wall Street " yuppie" while ignoring other complex demographic changes that may be equally important. For example, the dramatic revival of immigration streams into U.S. cities since the 1960s raises important questions on the role of new arrivals in processes of neighborhood change. We now turn to a case study of Brighton Beach to consider these issues.
A NEW GENTRIFICATION? THE CASE OF BRIGHTON BEACH
The round of neighborhood change that has transformed Brighton Beach con-
trasts sharply with that occurring in the trendy gentrified districts elsewhere in New York City. Yet many aspects of the area's recent history have been widely interpreted in the familiar language that dominated gentrification debates in the 1970s: new arrivals are " revitalizing " the housing market and retail base, "upgrading " homes and businesses, and over time sustaining a general neighborhood "renaissance." And in parallel with gentrification elsewhere, neighborhood revitalization seems to have involved some displacement of low-income households.
Brighton Beach is situated on a barrier island at the southern edge of Brooklyn, abutting Coney Island on the west and Manhattan Beach to the east (Fig. 1). Initially a string of small , middle-class seaside resorts, the area boomed when rail connections across Brooklyn made it accessible for day trips and short excursions. By the turn of the century Coney Island, once regarded as "a seaside extension of New York's vice districts" (Homberger, 1994, p. 128) had become a family-oriented center with three large amusement parks. Manhattan Beach became an outpost of shorefront homes for Manhattan's upper classes. The entire peninsula was in its heyday when the subway reached Coney Island and the boardwalk opened in the 1920s: even in the Depression of the 1930s Coney Island attracted 16 million summer visitors (Homberger, 1994, p. 128). With continued decentralization of New York City and the completion of regional highway networks in the postwar era, however, southern Brooklyn became an outdated and peripheral destination unable to compete with newer attractions farther east on Long Island and the Jersey Shore. A long period of commercial decline in the 1950s was punctuated by outmigration, deterioration of the housing stock, and the activities of the New York City Housing Authority. The peninsula received most of the public housing built in southern Brooklyn, with six projects completed between 1966 and 1980 (Fig. 2) (Homberger, 1994, p. 164).
The decline of Brighton Beach and Coney Island was both complex and symp-
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FIGURE 1. Census t ract boundaries in Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and Manhattan Beach .
tomatic of the familiar litany of ills plaguing other urban neighborhoods, and one should not oversimplify this history. Sharon Zukin (Zukin et al., 1998), for example, dates the area's decline much earlier than the postwar period- to the 1911 fire that destroyed Dreamland, one ofthe three beachfront amusement parks-and argues that an essential element of this downfall involved an uneasy tension in the class character of the place. The resort's heyday was based on expanding a middle-class resort to attract a broader audience of lower-class New Yorkers, and " the holiday practices of working-class culture-even at its most futuristic and commercial-tended to drive away other cultural images." (Zukin et al., 1998, p. 630) . The result was a powerful imagery associating this part of Brooklyn with a working-class New York history that planners, political leaders, and entrepreneurs sought to replace as they modernized the metropolis. Robert Moses declared the area " blighted" in 1939 and
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helped accelerate its decline by developing Jones Beach further out on Long Island, and he oversaw the construction of the area's first public housing in the late 1950s. Even so, the area still retained a large middle-class Jewish population, and "during the 1950s, a number of private developers (including Fred C. Trump, father of Donald) used federal subsidies to build several thousand co-op apartments for middle-income families. " (Zukin et al., 1998, p. 632).
IMMIGRATION AND THE TRANSFORMATION
OF BRIGHTON BEACH
If the decline of Coney Island and Brighton Beach was a complex process, its revitalization has been no less interesting. Immigration played a key role. In the 1980s, New York received the largest influx of immigrants (854,000) since the closure of Ellis Island in 1924 (Siegel, 1997, p. 218) . Through most of the 1980s
FIGURE 2. Public housing in Coney Island.
immigration from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union was extremely limited, with a selective flow of Soviet Jews coming to Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach. The recent dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, propelled this flow from a trickle of an average 1,300 arrivals per year in 1982-89 to 13,300 per year in 1990- 94. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union, dominated by Ukrainians and urban Russians, now constitute the second-largest source of arrivals to New York City, behind only Dominicans (Edmonson, 1997). Almost one in seven residents in Brighton Beach is a new arrival from Russia, and Russian-born persons comprise nearly two-thirds of the area's population.
The acceleration of immigration altered neighborhood ethnic and class composition and also drove a sweeping transformation of the area's residential landscape. These trends are evident in an analysis of population and housing characteristics in 1970, 1980, and 1990. Tables
1 and 2 present a set of common benchmarks used in gentrification research, charting trends in four census tracts atthe heart of Brighton Beach-one pair nestled between the boardwalk and the elevated rail line along the central commercial corridor of Brighton Beach Avenue, and the other pair to the north where retail and commercial uses give way to lower density housing. While the vintage of the decennial census hides the dramatic changes under way since 1990, these statistics provide an important series of historical snapshots ofthe links between immigration and gentrification.
This analysis confirms a striking turnaround in Brighton Beach. Several indicators provide consistent evidence of revitalization driven by immigration. Foreign-born persons as a share of total population increased in all four census tracts (reaching two-thirds in two tracts). All of the tracts registered losses in average, inflation-adjusted family income during the 1970s, fo llowed by vigorous
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TABLE 1 Population and Housing Characteristics North of Brighton Beach Avenue,
1970-1990.
Tract 362 Tract 364
1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990
Basic Demographic Indicators Total Population 3,325 3,601 3,528 2,702 2,069 1,667 Percent Non-Hispanic White 89.3 62.7 39.9 95.3 74.9 52.8 Percent Non-Hispanic Black 2.3 3.2 3.0 0.0 2.0 0.0 Percent Hispanic 8.3 24.2 29.7 4.3 14.5 28.1 Percent Foreign-Born 36.2 41.1 57.3 26.0 43.3 59.3 Poverty rate 23.2 33.3 23.7 10.8 17.9 22.7 Mean family income* 29,254 23,565 33,859 37,436 29,886 34,145
Education and Labor Market College Degree or more** 5.1 12.4 14.0 6.0 14.8 21 .2 Unemployment rate 8.2 11.3 16.6 5.8 9.7 14.6 Occupational compositon: Professional or Managerial 18.8 23.3 22.2 18.4 27.6 28.7 Sales 8.5 5.6 7.4 14.2 4.9 5.3 Administrative support 28.6 26.5 14.0 37.1 27.9 17.3 Skilled manual 27 .3 26.1 27.9 24.7 24.8 17.2 Unskilled manual 16.8 18.5 28.4 5.6 14.9 31 .6
Housing Market Total Housing Units 1,678 1,758 1,350 1,128 936 875 Homeownership rate 20.28 17.74 33.09 52.23 33.02 30.53 Vacancy rate 4.52 7.05 6.88 2.75 8.44 7.54 Median contract rent * 280 309 445 349 376 482
Notes: * Income and rent figures in constant 1990 dollars, adjusted with the CPI for the New York CMSA. **Universe is persons age 25 and over; for 1970 and 1980, share completing more than 15 years of education for 1990, share with bachelor's and/or grad./prof. degree.
(Source: Tobin, 1993)
increases in three tracts during the 1980s. Median inflation-adjusted rents increased in all four tracts, in one case advancing by a remarkable 44 percent during the 1980s. Educational upgrading is also apparent, but occupational shifts are more complex-with the most notable trend being a decline in mid-level administrative support along with simultaneous growth in low-status service workers and white-collar professionals.
Countervailing trends are also important, however. Note that even as income, rent levels, and educational profiles edged upward, so have measures of neighborhood distress. The poverty rate increased in all four tracts, reaching a
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staggering 39 percent in one. Unemployment edged up in all tracts. Non-Hispanic blacks remain a very small proportion of residents, reflecting the extremely finegrained geography of racial segregation between Brighton Beach and Coney Island. As one moves north from Brighton Beach Avenue, however, there are rising shares of Hispanic residents, many of them recent arrivals from Puerto Rico. Housing indicators are also mixed, with demolition and losses in some areas, rental construction elsewhere. Rising homeownership rates are associated with general upgrading of single and duplex units on some blocks, but closer to the boardwalk new condominium and co-op
TABLE 2 Population and Housing Characteristics South of Brighton Beach Avenue,
1970-1990.
Tract 360.01 Tract 360.02
1970 1980 1990 1970 1980 1990
Basic Demographic Indicators Total Population 3,109 3,078 3,555 4,146 3,847 3,951 Percent Non-Hispanic White 96.7 95.7 81 .4 98.7 94.5 95.8 Percent Non-Hispanic Black 0.0 0.9 0.5 0.0 0.2 1.8 Percent Hispanic 2.9 2.5 11 .6 1.1 5.1 1.6 Percent Foreign-Born 50.5 54.0 65.7 53.3 64.8 69.0 Poverty rate 19.3 20.8 29.2 17.6 18.2 38.9 Mean family income* 31,108 23,911 32,373 29,202 21,628 19,955
Education and Labor Market College Degree or more** 4.7 7.8 18.2 3.9 8.6 11 .9 Unemployment rate 8.5 9.6 12.7 8.0 8.1 14.4 Occupational composition: Professional or Managerial 19.0 22.4 28.5 17.5 18.7 21.8 Sales 12.8 14.6 10.4 11 .0 6.6 6.9 Administrative support 29.5 27 .0 13.3 39.3 26.3 18.8 Skilled manual 25.4 25.2 21 .4 27.8 27.0 23.4 Unskilled manual 13.2 10.8 26.4 4.4 21.4 29.2
Housing Market Total Housing Units 1,654 1,771 2,099 2,131 2,111 2,223 Homeownership rate 4.44 1.75 21 .27 7.16 4.56 2.9 Vacancy rate 0.6 0.39 4.57 1.12 0.33 2.42 Median contract rent* 349 422 461 327 347 410
Notes: * Income and rent figures in constant 1990 dollars, adjusted with the CPI for the New York CMSA. **Universe is persons age 25 and over; for 1970 and 1980, share completing more than 15 years of education for 1990, share with bachelor' s and/or grad./prof. degree.
(Source: Tobin, 1993)
construction is adding many new units at the upper end of the market. The booming national and regional economy has accelerated development in the 1990s. In a particularly striking image, the site of the Brighton Beach Baths is now being redeveloped for an 850-unit condominium complex (Harris, 1999).
These trends are consistent with a widening social polarization of Brighton Beach. There does not appear to be a full scale gentrification with sufficient momentum to transform the class character of the place entirely. Indeed, the varied status and educational profile of new Russian arrivals-some are refugees, others are highly educated professionals-
maintains a considerable diversity in the local population. The magnitude of continued immigration flow complicates any attempt to identify a stable equilibrium. Moreover, the classical ecological processes of spatial assimilation seem to be at work with a vengeance. Manhattan Beach, long a wealthy Jewish enclave, is now seeing a wave of new construction sites for Russians moving out of Brighton Beach, leading one journalist to dub the place "the Scarsdale of Russian New York." (Yardley, 1998). The selective outmigration from Brighton Beach thus makes the place more dynamic and more complex than gentrified districts that manage to attain-and keep-a position
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at the top of a particular housing submarket (see Smith, 1996; cf. Berry, 1985).
CHANGES IN THE COMMERCIAL LANDSCAPE
As neighborhood demographics changed, so did the businesses in the area (Fig . 3). Not surprisingly, the popular press has drawn attention to the restau rants and clubs of Brighton Beach. A food critic for the New York Daily News dubbed the area the " Russo-Baltic-Scardi food belt, " with glowing reviews of such establishments as Cafe St. Petersburg and A Taste of Russia (Purdy, 1996). Scores of similar accounts in the local press provide impressionistic evidence of commercial change. To gain a more systematic understanding of these trends, interviews were conducted with staff at a total of 36 commercial establishments along Brighton Beach Avenue, the main retail corridor. Where possible, proprietors or senior managers were interviewed in order to determine whether and how the current business differed from previ -
ous activities at that location. Most of the establishments included in this sample have been at their present location for 12 to 15 years. Of the 36 establishments studied, 33 had been in Brighton Beach since the latter half of the 1980's; 10 establishments opened in a single year, 1986. Three (a 99 cents store, a flea market, and a second-hand clothing store) had been in their present locations prior to 1985.
The survey revealed substantial evidence of commercial revitalization. Ofthe three dozen businesses surveyed, eight replaced vacant storefronts, while an additional seven replaced discount stores; one store replaced a bail bondsman, while another replaced a pawn shop. The establishments serve a cross-section of the residents, and reflect the evolving demography ofthe local population: current businesses include fur stores, specialized clothing stores, Russian restaurants, pharmacies, food markets, and night clubs. Two-thirds of the managers emphasized that vacancies in the area had
FIGURE 3. The Boardwalk in Brighton Beach.
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made it inexpensive to establish a business in their location. As in many other cities the succession of the small business class replaced older Jewish entrepreneurs, many of whom had established a foothold in Brighton Beach in the 1930s and 1940s, with younger Russian-born proprietors serving a growing immigrant population. Several Russian gourmet food stores have replaced Kosher delis. There has also been a shift from generalpurpose stores to more specialized shops serving a well -developed and growing local market, such as the replacement of discount clothing stores with fur and leather shops. Finally, this commercial revitalization seems to have driven at least some displacement. One resident interviewed, who has lived in Brighton Beach since 1961 , observed thatthe upper floors of many older commercial buildings along Brighton Beach Avenue had been rented as apartments, primarily to Puerto Rican residents. By the middle of the 1980s, however, many buildings had been purchased by Russian-born entrepreneurs who converted the upper floors to office uses (Zimmerman, 1998).
Changes in the residential and commercial landscapes of Brighton Beach paint a picture of dynamism. While many trends bear close resemblance to gentrification processes described in the vast geographical literature on the subject, other changes suggest a more ambiguous interpretation. On the one hand, the influx of Russians into Brighton Beach has sustained a rebound in housing demand, increased average incomes, and upgraded the occupational and educational profile of the neighborhood. The new population has, in turn, supported a revival of retail demand. These processes appear to have begun pushing much of the housing stock out of the reach of lowincome residents, although it is virtually impossible to obtain geographicallyspecific data that would measure displacement (Smith, 1996). On the other hand, some indicators point to important contrasts with gentrification processes that play out in inner-city areas that become attractive to native-born white professionals. Poverty and unemployment
have increased even as revitalization has proceeded, and the diversity of immigrant flows has produced a corresponding diversity and dynamism in the local housing market.
CONCLUSIONS
The 1980s were widely regarded, by critics and admirers alike, as the decade of the yuppie. Gentrification came to be seen as an important geographical expression of the demographic trends, income inequality, and consumption choices epitomized by young, usually white urban professionals. The 1990s, however, lack a corresponding single image to capture the essence of sociocultural urban change. Perhaps the disappearance of the yuppie is appropriate: the 1980s were, in many respects, the twilight of an era in which many urban issues could be understood in dichotomous, black-white terms. In gentrification research, this era was characterized by a concern that poor, native-born African Americans were being displaced by white yuppies.
A decade later, neighborhood change has grown exceedingly complex with the revival of immigration into American cities. This study confirms that immigration has the potential to revitalize distressed neighborhoods: Brighton Beach has enjoyed an influx of new arrivals, many of them well-educated professionals and entrepreneurs able to establish themselves in New York's dynamic economy. Buoyant retail and housing demand have followed .
Yet the Russification of Brighton Beach is extremely complex. In a pattern similar to that observed in some other gentrifying neighborhoods, poverty and unemployment have increased even as other indicators (income, occupation and educational attainment) edged upward. Three additional factors distinguish immigrant-driven neighborhood change from conventional processes studied in most of the gentrification literature. First, immigrant-driven neighborhood dynamics are determined by a distinct set of mechanisms at the national and global scales. Conventional, "yuppie-driven"
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t
gentrification may be explained in terms of the standard processes of housing demand or landlord and developer speculation. Immigration entails additional factors related to the varied selectivity of migrants, the importance of chain migration, and the family reunification provisions of U.S. immigration code. Second, there are important contrasts between immigrants' origins and the conditions of urban life in American cities. Educational and occupational credentials from other countries are often not recognized in the U.S. labor market, forcing many professionals to pursue entrepreneurial alternatives. Family- and gender-related issues also matter. Foner (1998) describes the varied experiences of Jewish emigre women from the former Soviet Union. While many confront the usual barriers of juggling paid employment with unpaid domestic responsibilities, others are more fortunate. For women whose husbands earn enough to allow them to stay at home, coming to the U.S. frees them from their triple roles of wife, mother, and worker. Third and finally, issues of social and cultural identity are crucial in immigrant neighborhoods, distinguishing these areas from trendy gentrified districts where consumption is often the defining social mark. On the one hand, the Russian community in Brighton Beach is in many respects bounded and selfdefined by shared history, culture, and language-a fact that explains many of the tensions that emerge when upwardly mobile Russians seek out new homes in Manhattan Beach. On the other hand, this identity lends greater visibility to processes that would otherwise remain hidden in the fluid complexity of the neighborhood economy. In the popular press, the favorable image of the Russian as entrepreneur is often obscured by sensationalist fascination with the mysterious aura of the Russian Mafia and the purported role of Brighton Beach in the underground economy. Ultimately, the Russification of Brighton Beach represents a new and complex path of neighborhood change, a hybrid between classical "invasion-succession" processes and the dynamics of contemporary gentrification.
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In light of accelerated immigration into American cities, this process deserves further study by geographers.
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