Gentrifying Forces

THESE CHANGES ARE CAUSED BY two main gentrifying forces. Firstly, the creative sector (concentrated at Industry City) and the immigrant growth coalition that comprises of Chinese developers, realtors and ethnic banks that are developing luxury housing projects throughout the neighborhood.

Sunset Park’s waterfront is a designated Significant Maritime Industrial Area and Industrial Business Zone (IBZ). Once the site for industrial manufacturing, the area is being actively repositioned for an innovation economy to meet the spatial needs of the creative sector. This repositioning is anchored by Industry City, a massive development which owns thirty-five acres along the waterfront.

In 2017, Sunset Park featured prominently in Mayor de Blasio’s New York Works plan, laying out priority industries to create 100,000 middle class jobs along one of New York City’s last remaining industrial waterfront neighborhoods. However, the plan was heavily questioned on the basis of equity as these jobs were not catered to low-income New Yorkers who typically lack high school diplomas and English language proficiency. The proposal was halted in August 2020 as community activists had City Councilman Carlos Menchaca to oppose plans for the Brooklyn building complex.

Yet, the impending threats of private capital investments remain. This is partially fuelled by Opportunity Zoning. Opportunity Zones are a federal community development program meant to encourage long-term private investment in low-income communities. Many “key areas” of Sunset Park and the Brooklyn Navy Yard are designated as such.

Designated Opportunity

Zones in Sunset Park

Hum, Tarry. “Made in New York? Innovation Economies and Immigrant Precarity.” The Gotham Center for New York City History. The Gotham Center for New York City History, September 19, 2019.

Piser, Karina. “Why Industry City Rezoning Is Failing.” City & State NY. City & State New York, July 6, 2021. https://www.cityandstateny. com/politics/2020/08/why-industry-cityrezoning-is-failing/175744/.

Through immigrant growth coalitions, ethnic banks promote neighborhood development based on relationships established with realtors and developers. This deepens intra-ethnic class divides through competing agendas for land use in regard to housing and the banks’ meager reinvestments in the community. Instead, their extensive investments in commercial real estate and development driven by global capital perpetuates gentrification. Additionally, ethnic-specific orientation also reproduces a racially stratified neighborhood by excluding the significant underbanked Latinx population.

Other related conditions also contribute to gentrification in Sunset Park. The neighborhood is located near affluent, trendy Park Slope and it is easily reachable by bus and subway. It is only a short subway ride from Manhattan. It has an abundance of desirable brownstones apartment buildings and it is located on the water. All of these things, along with the conditions described earlier, make gentrification and displacement a growing issue for Sunset Park.

Hum, Tarry. “Immigrant Growth Coalitions and Neighborhood Change: The Role of Ethnic Banks.” In Making a Global Immigrant Neighborhood: Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, 104–38. Temple University Press, 2014.