5 Cities That Could Be the "Next Brooklyn"
Whether tongue-in-cheek or just plain old cliched, cities on the upswing continue to compare themselves to a triumphant Brooklyn. And why not? Kings County's median rents are now just $388 below Manhattan’s, the borough’s tech triangle is heating up and its artisanal-gritty cachet has notoriously become a global brand. Even Paris, a city with no shortage of hubris, has caught the Brooklyn bug. Here are five US cities that are also mimicking NYC's still-white hot borough.
It’s a modest leap to say that Oakland is to SF as Brooklyn is to Manhattan: a long-derided stepchild of a world-class destination just across a body of water. But while crime and memories of those Occupy protests still dog the city of 390K, $2B worth of waterfront development, expanding start-ups (like Minted) and a growing DIY culture led by newfangled “artisans” priced out of SF are helping Oakland realize its potential.
The nation’s most dangerous city has a long, hard road toward Brooklyn-ization ahead of it. But as a flurry of glam apartment buildings rises in neighboring Philadelphia, the Kings County comparison, however far-fetched, has been made. After all, waterfront loft conversions are underway and aggressive tax breaks have lured companies like the energy giant Holtec. Still, as Philly continues to lure artists priced out of NYC, it's probably the city most likely to inherit Brooklyn's mantle of cool.
Granted, it was the ambitious mayor, Aja Brown, who asserted that the gangster rap breeding ground was due for a BK-style comeback. But should plans for a major e-commerce project and a restructured City Hall (empowered by a budget recently saved from bankruptcy) come to fruition, Compton's solid infrastructure, falling crime and proximity to LA could rejuvenate its very public bad reputation.
Fresh out of the largest municipal bankruptcy in history, the Motor City now has to contend with a hollowed-out residential core and post-industrial commercial devastation. But that sort of neglect has been a magnet for revitalizing artists. And Michigan native and Quicken founder Dan Gilbert is leading a highly-publicized effort to revive downtown: his Rock Ventures develeopment company's portfolio now encompasses roughly 10M SF.
Fortune mag closed out 2013 by giving the "Mistake by the Lake" a 63% chance of becoming the next BK (its odds trailed Louisville's and beat third place finisher Detroit's). It cited a trio of fixie-friendly neighborhoods—Tremont, Ohio City and Gordon Square—in its reasoning. The numbers back up the declaration: last year more than $600M was invested in projects dowtown, where since 2000 the population has soared by 60%.
