Tale of two boroughs: BK home to 2 of NYC’s richest neighborhoods and 5 of its poorest

Bill de Blasio got elected in part because of his “tale of two cities” rhetoric, pointing out that while some neighborhoods are doing awesome, others, sometimes even in the shadow of the ones doing awesome, were not doing well at all. Was it Marxist blather or was it reality around here? New numbers from the Independent Budget Office, based on Census data from 2000 and 2011 gives Brooklyn a starring role in the tale of two boroughs at least, as our borough is home to two neighborhoods that are the city’s richest but also five that are its poorest. Yay?

Using Census data from 2000 and American Community Survey data from 2011, the IBO determined the Census tracts that contained the city’s highest and lowest median incomes. In the ten years between the studies, not a whole lot has changed. Manhattan is still the biggest looming target of the eventual class war, with nine of the ten richest neighborhoods in the city in 2000, and then eight of them in 2010.

The good news(?) for Brooklyn is that tracts in DUMBO and Brooklyn Heights muscled their way onto the “richest neighborhood” list and are doing awesome, as any quick stroll through them will tell you. The bad news is that while Brooklyn had four of the poorest Census tracts in 2000, we gained one, and with five, have the most low-income tracts in the survey. One is in Coney Island, one in Fort Greene, one in Flatbush and two in Brownsville. Even better, Manhattan’s richest neighborhood tract on the Upper East Side, with a median income of $247,000, pulls in 25 times the $9,500 median income of the city’s poorest income tract in Coney Island. So anyway, good morning and happy class war, everyone!