There Was Nothing There

Sara Martucci gives us a long view of gentrification in one North Brooklyn neighborhood where old timers, former bohemians, and condo owners offer competing narratives of community. While new construction and renovation clean up the area, police patrols and a swelling population of new, affluent, white residents create a feeling of safety that is no longer tied to ethnic groups and their turf. This is valuable testimony to the power of financial investment and aesthetic alteration to displace low-income residents and local shops, smoothing the jagged edges of uneven development. ~Sharon Zukin, author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places

In a short time, Williamsburg went from being a neighborhood to avoid to a globally renowned brand for upscale bohemianism. It helped signal Brooklyn as a ‘cool’ place for investment. In this new lively new book, Martucci reminds us that even a hyper-gentrified neighborhood still has more social class and ethnoracial diversity than meets the eye. With the idea that groups experience the same spaces through their own distinct ‘neighborhood attachment styles,’ she has given us a novel way of understanding how different people come to make sense of where they live. Most importantly, these styles shape social action and help explain everyday tensions that emerge from gentrification. Martucci’s work will resonate with any reader who studies or lives in places undergoing massive change. ~Richard Ocejo, author of Masters of Craft: Old Jobs in the New Urban Economy

Martucci carries the baton forward in her study of gentrifying Brooklyn. Her focus on ‘attachment styles’ captures the cross-cutting use values of residents in a rapidly changing neighborhood. There Was Nothing There shows how people can be in the same space, but not of the same place of mind. ~Jason Patch, co-author of Gentrifier