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Explores the daily, lived effects of gentrification for neighborhood residents
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a prominent neighborhood in New York City, has undergone significant transformations through cycles of divestment and gentrification. In 2005, the city’s decision to rezone the Williamsburg waterfront for high-rise housing led to a profound alteration of the physical, cultural, and social landscape. The result was the rapid influx of thousands of new residents, many of them wealthy, giving rise to luxury buildings, upscale dining, and high-end retail stores alongside new norms and expectations for the neighborhood. These new arrivals coexist with earlier gentrifiers as well as working-class Latinx and white ethnic populations, creating a complex and layered community.
In There Was Nothing There, Sara Martucci draws on four decades of residents’ memories and experiences, providing insights into the tensions, contradictions, and inequalities brought about by gentrification. Martucci focuses on the individual level, exploring how residents form connections to their neighborhoods and how these attachments shape their daily experiences of public spaces, local consumption, and evaluations of safety. As established residents, bohemians, and newcomers vie for ownership and belonging, their perceptions give rise to conflicting narratives that define the essence of the neighborhood.
While the book’s primary focus is Williamsburg, it serves as a cautionary tale about the broader impact of state-led gentrification, extending far beyond Brooklyn. The text underscores the potential consequences of such transformations for the future of cities, urging readers to consider the implications of cultural displacement, homogenization, and increased surveillance as gentrification permeates urban landscapes.
"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."
"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."
"[Martucci's] inclusion of current residents' voices and displaced and replaced businesses in illuminating cultural displacement and various types of neighborhood attachment is compelling ... The bibliography is thorough and the endnotes substantive. A strength of this study is the generalizability to other communities."