“There is nothing hip and cool happening in Brooklyn. It’s a war,” Imani Henry told us. “If people can really think about it, there are people moving to the Poconos and Ithaca in their 70s. People with mental health conditions who have no place to go or live. Families are being pushed out of their apartments. There’s nothing sexy, hot, or cute about it.”…
“We define gentrification as a ‘deliberate, organized, constructed situation.’ It is not an accident, it is not happenstance,” he told us. “They want to make a profit. City governments, corporations, and real estate developers are luring rich people back to the cities with the hope and promise that we, the existing communities, will be driven out.”
Henry vehemently rejects the idea that the loss of affordable housing is just a byproduct of the recession. In fact, he says it’s been orchestrated by the same banks and corporations responsible for the financial crisis, and he finds it patronizing when “economists and other mouth pieces for the powers that be” claim otherwise.
‘There is nothing hip and cool happening in Brooklyn. It’s a war.’
