The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back

Only a few decades ago, the Brooklyn stereotype well known to Americans was typified by television programs such as “The Honeymooners” and “Welcome Back, Kotter”—comedies about working-class sensibilities, deprivation, and struggles. Today, the borough across the East River from Manhattan is home to trendsetters, celebrities, and enough “1 percenters” to draw the Occupy Wall Street protests across the Brooklyn Bridge. “Tres Brooklyn,” has become a compliment among gourmands in Parisian restaurants. In The New Brooklyn, Kay Hymowitz chronicles the policies and events that transformed the borough so dramatically in such a short period of time and considers whether the borough’s new wealth will lift up some of the borough’s most blighted neighborhoods. Her portrait of the dramatic transformation of one urban center offers prescriptions that any city can employ and will be required reading for everyone interested in the rebirth of America’s cities.