Brooklyn is so hip that 2.6 million of its residents can’t afford to live there anymore

Brooklyn is home to around 2.6 million people. Once upon a time, folks chose to live there because it was more affordable than Manhattan. That’s not the case anymore.

The sad thing is, Brooklyn was once the epitome of “cool,” but now it’s an unaffordable purgatory. It’s hard to keep the image of a refuge for young artists when you’re offering $2,900 a month in median rent.

But it’s not just a matter of being “too expensive.” Brooklyn now has the honor of being the most unaffordable housing market in the U.S.

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From Bloomberg:

Of the 475 counties analyzed by RealtyTrac through October, 98 areas weren’t as affordable compared with the average level for the period starting in January 2000, the Irvine, California-based data company said in a report today. Brooklyn, New York, where a resident would need to devote 98 percent of the median income to afford the payment on a median-priced home of $615,000, was the least-affordable market, followed by San Francisco and Manhattan.

Calling all artists with fat trust funds.

Hamilton Nolan of Gawker put it best in August of last year:

HAHAHAHA. It is endlessly fascinating to watch NYC, this alleged magnet for starving artists and young energy, continue its transformation into a multinational hub for millionaires, in which regular people are pushed farther and farther outside of the central city. It is like a game of urban Candy Crush, in which all of the incoming rich people send the former residents of their neighborhoods scurrying off the board. The supperrich push the rich out of Manhattan; the rich push the middle class out of Brooklyn; it’s only a matter of time before the entire NYC working class will be commuting in from upstate. In the meantime, this all very academic; average rents here in the city are too expensive for you or anyone you know.

Hey, there’s always Detroit.

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