There Goes the Neighborhood: How Brooklyn Got Gentrified

There Goes the Neighborhood: How Brooklyn Got Gentrified

There Goes the Neighborhood: How Brooklyn Got Gentrified

In the first episode of our new podcast series, we visit Bed-Stuy to learn how developers find properties to flip—and what happens to people who already live there.

Kai Wright and There Goes the Neighborhood
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Gentrification is something everyone is talking about—and the conversation is often heated. It’s a complicated idea with a range of factors: race, class, history, policy. And of course there is the personal experience that we each bring to the table.

In the first episode of our new podcast, produced in partnership with WNYC Studios, take a walk in Bedford-Stuyvesant with Monica Bailey, a resident of the neighborhood for more than 30 years. She’ll show you the home she lost.

Sit in the office of a Brooklyn developer and listen to him work the phones. He’ll talk tactics for going after foreclosures.

These are the people affected by change—and the people who are bringing it. Meet them up close and follow the wave of gentrification deeper into Brooklyn.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. Have something to say? Get in touch with the There Goes the Neighborhood team at (646) 783-WNYC or through this form:

 

Time is running out to have your gift matched 

In this time of unrelenting, often unprecedented cruelty and lawlessness, I’m grateful for Nation readers like you. 

So many of you have taken to the streets, organized in your neighborhood and with your union, and showed up at the ballot box to vote for progressive candidates. You’re proving that it is possible—to paraphrase the legendary Patti Smith—to redeem the work of the fools running our government.

And as we head into 2026, I promise that The Nation will fight like never before for justice, humanity, and dignity in these United States. 

At a time when most news organizations are either cutting budgets or cozying up to Trump by bringing in right-wing propagandists, The Nation’s writers, editors, copy editors, fact-checkers, and illustrators confront head-on the administration’s deadly abuses of power, blatant corruption, and deconstruction of both government and civil society. 

We couldn’t do this crucial work without you.

Through the end of the year, a generous donor is matching all donations to The Nation’s independent journalism up to $75,000. But the end of the year is now only days away. 

Time is running out to have your gift doubled. Don’t wait—donate now to ensure that our newsroom has the full $150,000 to start the new year. 

Another world really is possible. Together, we can and will win it!

Love and Solidarity,

John Nichols 

Executive Editor, The Nation

Kai Wright Kai Wright is editor and host of WNYC’s narrative unit, and a columnist for The Nation.


There Goes the NeighborhoodThere Goes the Neighborhood, a podcast by The Nation and WNYC Studios and hosted by Kai Wright, takes an in-depth look at gentrification in Brooklyn and the integral role that race plays in the process.


Ad Policy
x

Latest from the nation

Yesterday 12:02 pm

The Story of the Year

Steve Brodner
Yesterday 10:21 am

A Movement-Building Strategy for All Workers

Peter Olney and David Bacon
Yesterday 8:30 am

Gentrifier Go Home

Motyko Morales
December 25, 2025

Biden

Rob Rogers
December 24, 2025

Christmas Wish

Andrea Arroyo

editor's picks

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

The Nation

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

Mychal Denzel Smith