ABSTRACT
A New Gentrification? A Case
Study of the Russification of
Brighton Beach, New York
Keith Brown
Undergraduate Student
Elvin Wyly
Professor
Gentrification is often equated with the
residential and consumption preferences
of young , white, native-born professionals. The link between gentrification and
" yuppies," however, does not seem adequate to capture the complexity oftrends
currently underway in many city neigh borhoods. In this paper, census data and
fieldwork are utilized to develop a case
study of Russian immigration and neigh borhood revitalization in Brighton Beach,
New York City. " Russification" has revi talized housing demand and retail activity
by altering the class composition of the
neighborhood, while also increasing inequality and inducing displacement similar to that observed in other gentrifying
districts. Nevertheless, important cultural
and policy-related factors distinguish
immigrant-driven neighborhood change
from more conventional forms of
gentrification .
KEY WORDS : gentrification, immigration,
land values, minorities, urban revitaliza tion , New York City.
INTRODUCTION
Department of Geograph y
Rutgers University
54 Joyce Kilm er Avenue
Piscataway NJ 08854-8054
94
Years ago, the popular movie Brighton
Beach Memoirs dramatized the lives of a
middle class Jewish family in Brooklyn,
New York. The film's vivid images of
neighborhood life presented an accurate
portrayal of the place in the 1950s, when
it was a solid middle-class Jewish com munity. But in subsequent years white
flight and suburbanization took their toll.
Poverty and
disinvestment spread
throughout Brighton Beach and surrounding areas until the mid-1980's,
when a resurgence of foreign immigration brought waves of new arrivals to
the United States. Russian immigrants
poured into Brighton Beach, tightening
the housing market and displacing poor
residents. The influx dramatically transformed what had become a poor workingclass area, and today Brighton Beach is
anchored by a healthy commercial strip
and a booming real estate market. Now
the images of Brighton Beach Memoirs
are distant urban history; for a cinematic
portrayal of the mixture of new Russians
and working class African Americans, we
would have to include titles such as Little
Odessa, or Spike Lee's He Got Game.
The process that transformed Brighton
Beach is gentrification. Gentrification is
defined as " a process of neighborhood
regeneration by relatively affluent incomers, who displace lower income groups
and invest in the improvement of homes
the quality of which has deteriorated .
Such neighborhoods are usually accessible to the city center and comprise substantial older dwellings" . . . (Johnston,
1994, p. 216) . Gentrification is an important urban process because it acts as a
counter force to suburbanization, and reverses the classical invasion-succession
processes. Thus middle- and uppermiddle class households displace lowerincome families, as individuals or insti tutions invest money in neighborhoods
that have been artificially devalued by
metropolitan-wide forces of suburbanization and uneven development (Smith,
1996). Gentrification has attracted widespread attention from geographers and
other social scientists, but until recently
most studies have focused on the role of
white, young, upwardly-mobile professionals. Indeed, after Newsweek famously crowned 1984 as "The Year of the
Yuppie " (Newsweek, 1984), an everbroader range of seemingly new economic, social, and political trends were
linked to this hybrid category that was "a
mixture of age, address, and class." (Ehrenreich, 1989, p. 196). Gentrification, in
the eyes of both admirers and detractors,
quickly became inseparable from the
predilections of the yuppie. "Yuppification," however, does not seem adequate
to describe the complex neighborhood
change underway in new immigrant enclaves such as Brighton Beach .
This paper analyses how immigration
shapes the gentrification process. Our
purpose is to determine whether and how
immigrant-driven gentrification differs
from conventional processes of "yuppification ." We examine changes in the
population and local businesses in Brighton Beach since the 1980s and we contrast these changes with trends docu-
mented in Park Slope and the Lower East
Side, well-known areas of gentrification
elsewhere in New York City (Lees and
Bondi, 1995). We begin with a brief review of the geographical literature on
gentrification, and then we turn to an examination of demographic trends in
Brooklyn and Brighton Beach .
THEORIES OF GENTRIFICATION
AND DEGENTRIFICATION
Gentrification is a prominent theme in
urban geography, with literally hundreds
of articles written on the subject since the
1970s (Smith and Herod, 1991). Histori cally, most of the literature emphasizes
the demand-side aspects of the process .
Johnson (1983), for example, identified
six interdependent causal factors. The
maturation of the post-World War II baby
boom increased household formation
rates, and intersected in growth in single,
divorced, and childless households during the 1960s and 1970s. Rising construction costs and inflation priced first-time
homebuyers out ofthe suburban housing
market. Simultaneous changes in the culture at large led to a growing dissatisfaction with suburban living, even as rising
fuel costs provided powerful incentives
for people to choose homes closer to
work. These trends reinforced the historical appeal of cities, and offered attractive
investment potential in selected urban
neighborhoods. Finally, Johnson (1983)
emphasized the importance of office construction in the downtown core for attracting residential gentrification; this
trend accelerated greatly in the 1980s
(see also Berry, 1985).
Subsequent research on gentrification
added new insights on the complexity of
the process, and fueled debates on the
relative importance of different causal
factors. Clark (1985) and others offered
"stage" theories, in which neighborhood
change begins with a few households in
search of unique or historic homes in an
environment where alternative lifestyles
are tolerated. Within a few years, however, succession accelerates as speculators recognize the profit potential of the
neighborhood and as "do-it-yourself"
renovators are replaced by middle-class
95
families who regard their homes primarily as investments. This stage begins to
displace lower-income residents in the
area , as landlords are able to increase
rents, lending institutions are more will ing to make loans to prospective buyers,
and rental units are converted to condominiums or cooperative ownership . The
third and final stage is marked by consolidation: gentrifiers commonly seek historic district designation in order to enhance property values and exclude
unwanted land uses; local government
often increases the quality of public services provided to the neighborhood; and
middle-income residents (who initially
displaced low-i ncome households) may
themselves be displaced by wealthier
newcomers.
Geographical research on gentrification expanded rapidly in the 1980s, as
speculative downtown office construction fueled the revival of neighborhoods
in New York, Philadelphia , Chicago,
Washington , D.C, and other old cities that
had suffered from the deindustrialization
of the Northeast. The collapse of booming property markets in the recession of
the early 1990s, however, raised questions about the continued significance of
gentrification. Bou rne (1993) offered a
perceptive critique of the gentrification
literature, questioning the empirical measures used to document the process as
well as the significance for metropolitan
income inequality. Based on a case study
of neighborhoods in the Toronto metropolitan region, Bourne demonstrated that
gentrification contributed relatively little
to central-city income change, and was
dwarfed by the upgrading of existing elite
and middle class areas as well as the redevelopment of "greyfield " nonresidentialland . Moreover, Bourne (1993) argued
that the postwar circumstances driving
gentrification represented a unique historical event, and that the 1990s were witnessing a " post-gentrification era. "
GENTRIFICATION AND
DEGENTRIFICATION IN NEW YORK CITY
Bourne's commentary inaugurated a
spirited debate on the future of downtown redevelopment, neighborhood re96
vitalization, and the broader prospects for
central city housing markets (for
example, Smith, 1996, pp. 210-211) .
Bourne's analysis has been challenged by
critics who argue that recessionary
slumps are essential to the gentrification
process, and in any event the longrunning economic expansion revived
scores of central -city housing markets
and relegated the " degentrification" debate to the sidelines.
New York City provides an illuminating
case study of the gentrification and degentrification debates. An overheated
housing market was paralyzed in the
wake of the 1987 stock market crash and
the subsequent recession in the early
1990s, prompting sober re-evaluations of
the city's recent adventures:
In some corners ofthe city, the experts
say, gentrification may be remembered, along with junk bonds, stretch
limousines, and television evangelism, as just another grand excess of
the 1980s.... As the dust settles, we
can see that the areas that underwent
dramatic turnarounds had severe limitations. Rich people are simply not
going to live next to public housing
(Lueck, 1991, p. 1 [cited in Lees and
Bondi, 1995.])
Lees and Bondi (1995) analyze the similarities and contrasts between neighborhood change in two districts of New York
City. In the Lower East Side the recession
of the early 1970s led to a wave of forfei tures on tax-delinquent properties, and in
desperation to return parcels to the tax
rolls the city sold them at deep discounts.
Simultaneously the city's rise as a global
financial and investment center enhanced
the attractiveness of the Lower East Side,
only two miles north of the expanding fi nancial district. The result has been more
than two decades of vigorous gentrification activity, beginning with a trickle of
artists from nearby Greenwich Village
and Soho. These first arrivals were subsequently threatened with displacement
along with poorer residents when higherincome professionals began moving into
new and renovated upscale units. The
speed with which the process took place
in the context of a tight and polarized
housing market was dramatized by a seri es of uprisings in Tomkins Square Park
in 1988, ignited by attempts to evict the
homeless from a public space now surrounded by elite condos and co-ops
(Smith, 1996).
Lees and Bondi 's (1995) second case
study is Park Slope, originally a prosperous professional enclave that declined in
the 1930s and became affordable to Irish
and Italian -born working class families. A
turnaround began in the early 1970s, and
the area became increasingly attractive to
managers and professionals commuting
to Manhattan . In contrast to the Lower
East Side, however, the process was
slower and involved less severe instances
of displacement. Moreover, single
women and nontraditional households
have played an important role in the
neighborhood 's revival. Lees and Bondi's
(1995) study demonstrated the local specificity of gentrification among different
neighborhoods in the same city, echoing
earlier arguments by Beauregard (1986,
1990).
This review of the gentrification literature demonstrates the breadth of research on the subject. Nevertheless, debate persists on the importance of the
process, where theory predicts it will occur (and where it actually does), and who
is responsible for it. Moreover, studies
continue to define gentrification-usually
implicitly-in terms of white, upper middle class professionals. The literature,
therefore, continues to emphasize the
stereotype of the Wall Street " yuppie "
while ignoring other complex demographic changes that may be equally im portant. For example, the dramatic revival of immigration streams into U.S.
cities since the 1960s raises important
questions on the role of new arrivals in
processes of neighborhood change . We
now turn to a case study of Brighton
Beach to consider these issues.
A NEW GENTRIFICATION? THE CASE OF
BRIGHTON BEACH
The round of neighborhood change
that has transformed Brighton Beach con-
trasts sharply with that occurring in the
trendy gentrified districts elsewhere in
New York City. Yet many aspects of the
area's recent history have been widely interpreted in the familiar language that
dominated gentrification debates in the
1970s: new arrivals are " revitalizing " the
housing market and retail base, "upgrading " homes and businesses, and over
time sustaining a general neighborhood
"renaissance." And in parallel with gentrification elsewhere, neighborhood revitalization seems to have involved some
displacement of low-income households.
Brighton Beach is situated on a barrier
island at the southern edge of Brooklyn,
abutting Coney Island on the west and
Manhattan Beach to the east (Fig. 1). Initially a string of small , middle-class seaside resorts, the area boomed when rail
connections across Brooklyn made it accessible for day trips and short excursions. By the turn of the century Coney
Island, once regarded as "a seaside extension of New York's vice districts"
(Homberger, 1994, p. 128) had become a
family-oriented center with three large
amusement parks. Manhattan Beach became an outpost of shorefront homes for
Manhattan 's upper classes. The entire
peninsula was in its heyday when the
subway reached Coney Island and the
boardwalk opened in the 1920s: even in
the Depression of the 1930s Coney Island
attracted 16 million summer visitors
(Homberger, 1994, p. 128). With continued decentralization of New York City and
the completion of regional highway networks in the postwar era, however, southern Brooklyn became an outdated and peripheral destination unable to compete
with newer attractions farther east on
Long Island and the Jersey Shore. A long
period of commercial decline in the 1950s
was punctuated by outmigration , deterioration of the housing stock, and the activities of the New York City Housing Au thority. The peninsula received most of
the public housing built in southern
Brooklyn, with six projects completed between 1966 and 1980 (Fig. 2) (Homberger,
1994, p. 164).
The decline of Brighton Beach and Coney Island was both complex and symp97
Study area census tracts
MANllAlTAroJ?:
~
•
UEES
TATEN
ISLA 0
ROOKLYN
Brig~
Beach
Aqu arium
Subway stops
(Brooklyn-Manhattan
Transit [BMT] lines)
O;;"""===__===,,I Mile
N
CONEY
ISL A
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OCEAN
FIGURE 1. Census t ract boundaries in Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and Manhattan
Beach .
tomatic of the familiar litany of ills plagu ing other urban neighborhoods, and one
should not oversimplify this history.
Sharon Zukin (Zukin et al., 1998), for example, dates the area's decline much earlier than the postwar period- to the 1911
fire that destroyed Dreamland, one ofthe
three beachfront amusement parks-and
argues that an essential element of this
downfall involved an uneasy tension in
the class character of the place . The re sort's heyday was based on expanding a
middle-class resort to attract a broader
audience of lower-class New Yorkers, and
" the holiday practices of working-class
culture-even at its most futuristic and
commercial-tended to drive away other
cultural images." (Zukin et al., 1998,
p. 630) . The result was a powerful im agery associating this part of Brooklyn
with a working-class New York history
that planners, political leaders, and entrepreneurs sought to replace as they modernized the metropolis. Robert Moses declared the area " blighted" in 1939 and
98
helped accelerate its decline by developing Jones Beach further out on Long Island, and he oversaw the construction of
the area's first public housing in the late
1950s. Even so, the area still retained a
large middle-class Jewish population ,
and "during the 1950s, a number of private developers (including Fred C. Trump,
father of Donald) used federal subsidies
to build several thousand co-op apartments for middle-income families. " (Zukin et al., 1998, p. 632).
IMMIGRATION
AND THE TRANSFORMATION
OF BRIGHTON BEACH
If the decline of Coney Island and
Brighton Beach was a complex process,
its revitalization has been no less interesting. Immigration played a key role. In
the 1980s, New York received the largest
influx of immigrants (854,000) since the
closure of Ellis Island in 1924 (Siegel,
1997, p. 218) . Through most of the 1980s
FIGURE 2. Public housing in Coney Island.
immigration from Eastern Europe and the
Soviet Union was extremely limited, with
a selective flow of Soviet Jews coming to
Sheepshead Bay and Brighton Beach.
The recent dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, propelled this flow from a
trickle of an average 1,300 arrivals per
year in 1982-89 to 13,300 per year in
1990- 94. Immigrants from the former
Soviet Union, dominated by Ukrainians
and urban Russians, now constitute the
second-largest source of arrivals to New
York City, behind only Dominicans (Edmonson, 1997). Almost one in seven residents in Brighton Beach is a new arrival
from Russia, and Russian-born persons
comprise nearly two-thirds of the area's
population.
The acceleration of immigration altered neighborhood ethnic and class
composition and also drove a sweeping
transformation of the area's residential
landscape. These trends are evident in an
analysis of population and housing characteristics in 1970, 1980, and 1990. Tables
1 and 2 present a set of common benchmarks used in gentrification research,
charting trends in four census tracts atthe
heart of Brighton Beach-one pair nestled between the boardwalk and the elevated rail line along the central commercial corridor of Brighton Beach Avenue,
and the other pair to the north where retail and commercial uses give way to
lower density housing. While the vintage
of the decennial census hides the dramatic changes under way since 1990,
these statistics provide an important series of historical snapshots ofthe links between immigration and gentrification.
This analysis confirms a striking turnaround in Brighton Beach. Several indicators provide consistent evidence of
revitalization driven by immigration. Foreign-born persons as a share of total
population increased in all four census
tracts (reaching two-thirds in two tracts).
All of the tracts registered losses in average, inflation-adjusted family income
during the 1970s, fo llowed by vigorous
99
TABLE 1
Population and Housing Characteristics North of Brighton Beach Avenue,
1970-1990.
Tract 362
1970
1980
Tract 364
1990
1970
1980
1990
Basic Demographic Indicators
Total Population
3,325
3,601
3,528
2,702
2,069
1,667
Percent Non-Hispanic White
89.3
62.7
39.9
74.9
52.8
95.3
Percent Non-Hispanic Black
2.3
3.2
3.0
0.0
2.0
0.0
24.2
29.7
4.3
14.5
28.1
Percent Hispanic
8.3
Percent Foreign-Born
36.2
41.1
57.3
26.0
43.3
59.3
17.9
22.7
33.3
Poverty rate
23.2
23.7
10.8
Mean family income*
29,254
23,565
37,436
29,886
34,145
33,859
Education and Labor Market
College Degree or more**
5.1
12.4
14.0
6.0
14.8
21 .2
11.3
16.6
5.8
9.7
14.6
Unemployment rate
8.2
Occupational compositon:
23.3
22 .2
18.4
27.6
28.7
Professional or Managerial
18.8
Sales
8.5
5.6
7.4
14.2
4.9
5.3
17 .3
Administrative support
28.6
26.5
14.0
37.1
27 .9
Skilled manual
27 .3
26.1
27.9
24.7
24.8
17.2
Unskilled manual
16.8
18.5
28.4
5.6
14.9
31 .6
Housing Market
Total Housing Units
1,678
1,758
1,350
1,128
875
936
Homeownership rate
20.28
17 .74
33.09
52.23
33.02
30.53
7.05
6.88
2.75
8.44
7.54
Vacancy rate
4.52
280
445
349
376
482
309
Median contract rent *
Notes:
* Income and rent figures in constant 1990 dollars, adjusted with the CPI for the New York CMSA.
** Universe is persons age 25 and over; for 1970 and 1980, share completing more than 15 years
of education for 1990, share with bachelor's and/or grad ./prof. degree.
(Source: Tobin, 1993)
increases in three tracts during the 1980s.
Median inflation-adjusted rents increased
in all four tracts, in one case advancing
by a remarkable 44 percent during the
1980s. Educational upgrading is also apparent, but occupational shifts are more
complex-with the most notable trend
being a decline in mid-level administrative support along with simultaneous
growth in low-status service workers and
white-collar professionals.
Countervailing trends are also important, however. Note that even as income,
rent levels, and educational profiles
edged upward, so have measures of
neighborhood distress. The poverty rate
increased in all four tracts, reaching a
100
staggering 39 percent in one. Unemployment edged up in all tracts. Non-Hispanic
blacks remain a very small proportion of
residents, reflecting the extremely finegrained geography of racial segregation
between Brighton Beach and Coney Island . As one moves north from Brighton
Beach Avenue, however, there are rising
shares of Hispanic residents, many of
them recent arrivals from Puerto Rico.
Housing indicators are also mixed, with
demolition and losses in some areas,
rental construction elsewhere. Rising
homeownership rates are associated with
general upgrading of single and duplex
units on some blocks, but closer to the
boardwalk new condominium and co-op
TABLE 2
Population and Housing Characteristics South of Brighton Beach Avenue,
1970-1990.
Tract 360.01
1970
1980
Tract 360.02
1990
1970
1980
1990
Basic Demographic Indicators
Total Population
3,109
3,078
3,555
4,146
3,847
3,951
Percent Non-Hispanic White
96.7
95.7
81 .4
98.7
94.5
95.8
Percent Non-Hispanic Black
0.0
0.9
0.5
0.0
0.2
1.8
Percent Hispanic
2.9
2.5
11 .6
1.1
5.1
1.6
Percent Foreign-Born
50.5
54.0
65.7
53.3
69.0
64.8
Poverty rate
19.3
20.8
29 .2
17.6
18.2
38.9
31,108
23,911
Mean family income*
32,373
29,202
21,628
19,955
Education and Labor Market
College Degree or more**
4.7
7.8
18.2
3.9
8.6
11 .9
Unemployment rate
8.5
9.6
12.7
8.0
8.1
14.4
Occupational composition:
Professional or Managerial
19.0
22.4
28.5
17 .5
18.7
21.8
Sales
12.8
14.6
10.4
11 .0
6.6
6.9
Administrative support
29.5
27 .0
13.3
39.3
26.3
18.8
Skilled manual
25.4
25.2
21 .4
27.8
27.0
23.4
Unskilled manual
13.2
10.8
26.4
4.4
21.4
29 .2
Housing Market
Total Housing Units
1,654
1,771
2,099
2,131
2,111
2,223
1.75
4.44
Homeownership rate
21 .27
7.16
4.56
2.9
Vacancy rate
0.6
0.39
4.57
1.12
0.33
2.42
Median contract rent*
461
327
347
410
349
422
Notes:
* Income and rent figures in constant 1990 dollars, adjusted with the CPI for the New York CMSA.
** Universe is persons age 25 and over; for 1970 and 1980, share completing more than 15 years
of education for 1990, share with bachelor' s and/or grad ./prof. degree.
(Source: Tobin, 1993)
construction is adding many new units at
the upper end of the market. The booming national and regional economy has
accelerated development in the 1990s. In
a particularly striking image, the site of
the Brighton Beach Baths is now being redeveloped for an 850-unit condominium
complex (Harris, 1999).
These trends are consistent with a widening social polarization of Brighton
Beach. There does not appear to be a full scale gentrification with sufficient momentum to transform the class character
of the place entirely. Indeed, the varied
status and educational profile of new Russian arrivals-some are refugees, others
are highly educated professionals-
maintains a considerable diversity in the
local population. The magnitude of continued immigration flow complicates any
attempt to identify a stable equilibrium .
Moreover, the classical ecological processes of spatial assimilation seem to be
at work with a vengeance. Manhattan
Beach, long a wealthy Jewish enclave, is
now seeing a wave of new construction
sites for Russians moving out of Brighton
Beach, leading one journalist to dub the
place "the Scarsdale of Russian New
York." (Yardley, 1998). The selective outmigration from Brighton Beach thus
makes the place more dynamic and more
complex than gentrified districts that
manage to attain-and keep-a position
101
at the to p of a particular housing submarket (see Smith, 1996; cf. Berry, 1985).
CHANGES IN THE COMMERCIAL
LANDSCAPE
As
neighborhood
demographics
changed, so did the businesses in the
area (Fig . 3). Not surprisingly, the popular
press has drawn attention to the restau rants and clubs of Brighton Beach . A food
critic for the New York Daily News dubbed
the area the " Russo-Baltic-Scardi food
belt, " with glowing reviews of such establishments as Cafe St. Petersburg and A
Taste of Russia (Purdy, 1996). Scores of
similar accounts in the local press provide impressionistic evidence of com mercial change. To gain a more systematic understanding of these trends,
interviews were conducted with staff at a
total of 36 commercial establishments
along Brighton Beach Avenue, the main
retail corridor. Where possible, proprietors or senior managers were interviewed
in order to determine whether and how
the current business differed from previ -
ous activities at that location. Most of the
establishments included in this sample
have been at their present location for 12
to 15 years . Of the 36 establishments
studied, 33 had been in Brighton Beach
since the latter half of the 1980's; 10 establishments opened in a single year,
1986. Three (a 99 cents store, a flea market, and a second-hand clothing store)
had been in their present locations prior
to 1985.
The survey revealed substantial evidence of commercial revitalization. Ofthe
three dozen businesses surveyed, eight
replaced vacant storefronts, while an additional seven replaced discount stores;
one store replaced a bail bondsman,
while another replaced a pawn shop. The
establishments serve a cross-section of
the residents, and reflect the evolving demography ofthe local population: current
businesses include fur stores, specialized
clothing stores, Russian restaurants,
pharmacies, food markets, and night
clubs. Two-thirds of the managers em phasized that vacancies in the area had
FIGURE 3. The Boardwalk in Brighton Beach.
102
made it inexpensive to establish a business in their location. As in many other
cities the succession of the small business class replaced older Jewish entrepreneurs, many of whom had established
a foothold in Brighton Beach in the 1930s
and 1940s, with younger Russian-born
proprietors serving a growing immigrant
population. Several Russian gourmet
food stores have replaced Kosher delis.
There has also been a shift from generalpurpose stores to more specialized shops
serving a well-developed and growing local market, such as the replacement of
discount clothing stores with fur and
leather shops. Finally, this commercial revitalization seems to have driven at least
some displacement. One resident interviewed , who has lived in Brighton Beach
since 1961 , observed thatthe upper floors
of many older commercial buildings
along Brighton Beach Avenue had been
rented as apartments, primarily to Puerto
Rican residents. By the middle of the
1980s, however, many buildings had
been purchased by Russian-born entrepreneurs who converted the upper floors
to office uses (Zimmerman, 1998).
Changes in the residential and commercial landscapes of Brighton Beach
paint a picture of dynamism. While many
trends bear close resemblance to gentrification processes described in the vast
geographical literature on the subject,
other changes suggest a more ambiguous interpretation. On the one hand, the
influx of Russians into Brighton Beach
has sustained a rebound in housing demand, increased average incomes, and
upgraded the occupational and educational profile of the neighborhood. The
new population has, in turn , supported a
revival of retail demand . These processes
appear to have begun pushing much of
the housing stock out of the reach of lowincome residents, although it is virtually
impossible to obtain geographicallyspecific data that would measure displacement (Smith , 1996). On the other
hand, some indicators point to important
contrasts with gentrification processes
that play out in inner-city areas that become attractive to native-born white professionals. Poverty and unemployment
have increased even as revitalization has
proceeded, and the diversity of immigrant flows has produced a corresponding diversity and dynamism in the local
housing market.
CONCLUSIONS
The 1980s were widely regarded, by
critics and admirers alike, as the decade
of the yuppie. Gentrification came to be
seen as an important geographical expression of the demographic trends,
income inequality, and consumption
choices epitomized by young, usually
white urban professionals. The 1990s,
however, lack a corresponding single image to capture the essence of sociocultural urban change. Perhaps the disappearance of the yuppie is appropriate:
the 1980s were, in many respects, the twilight of an era in which many urban issues could be understood in dichotomous, black-white terms. In gentrification
research, this era was characterized by a
concern that poor, native-born African
Americans were being displaced by white
yuppies .
A decade later, neighborhood change
has grown exceedingly complex with the
revival of immigration into American cities. This study confirms that immigration
has the potential to revitalize distressed
neighborhoods: Brighton Beach has en joyed an influx of new arrivals, many of
them well-educated professionals and
entrepreneurs able to establish themselves in New York's dynamic economy.
Buoyant retail and housing demand have
followed .
Yet the Russification of Brighton Beach
is extremely complex. In a pattern similar
to that observed in some other gentrifying neighborhoods, poverty and unemployment have increased even as other
indicators (income, occupation and educational attainment) edged upward.
Three additional factors distinguish
immigrant-driven neighborhood change
from conventional processes studied in
most of the gentrification literature. First,
immigrant-driven neighborhood dynamics are determined by a distinct set of
mechanisms at the national and global
scales. Conventional, "yuppie-driven"
103
t
gentrification may be explained in terms
of the standard processes of housing demand or landlord and developer speculation. Immigration entails additional factors related to the varied selectivity of
migrants, the importance of chain migration, and the family reunification provisions of U.S. immigration code. Second,
there are important contrasts between
immigrants' origins and the conditions of
urban life in American cities. Educational
and occupational credentials from other
countries are often not recognized in the
U.S. labor market, forcing many professionals to pursue entrepreneurial alternatives. Family- and gender-related issues also matter. Foner (1998) describes
the varied experiences of Jewish emigre
women from the former Soviet Union .
While many confront the usual barriers of
juggling paid employment with unpaid
domestic responsibilities, others are
more fortunate. For women whose husbands earn enough to allow them to stay
at home, coming to the U.S . frees them
from their triple roles of wife, mother, and
worker. Third and finally, issues of social
and cultural identity are crucial in immigrant neighborhoods, distinguishing
these areas from trendy gentrified districts where consumption is often the defining social mark. On the one hand, the
Russian community in Brighton Beach is
in many respects bounded and selfdefined by shared history, culture, and
language-a fact that explains many of
the tensions that emerge when upwardly
mobile Russians seek out new homes in
Manhattan Beach. On the other hand, this
identity lends greater visibility to processes that would otherwise remain hidden in the fluid complexity of the neighborhood economy. In the popular press,
the favorable image of the Russian as entrepreneur is often obscured by sensationalist fascination with the mysterious
aura of the Russian Mafia and the purported role of Brighton Beach in the underground economy. Ultimately, the Russification of Brighton Beach represents
a new and complex path of neighborhood
change, a hybrid between classical
"invasion-succession" processes and the
dynamics of contemporary gentrification.
104
In light of accelerated immigration into
American cities, this process deserves
further study by geographers.
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