Excellent gentrification reporting is a major accomplishment. There is a lot for a reporter to contend with writing about race, money, corruption, a city’s most powerful institutions and its residents intensely personal notions of home—especially in a city like New York, which has long been the home of so many people displaced from elsewhere.
In a new podcast entitled “There Goes the Neighborhood,” local public radio powerhouse WNYC has partnered with progressive weekly The Nation to bring listeners a powerful and unflinching exploration of gentrification in Brooklyn.
The show, produced by a diverse and wildly credentialed team, is hosted by The Nation’s features editor Kai Wright and features a score by Terence Blanchard, who worked on the music for “Do the Right Thing.”
Expect to hear heartbreaking conversations with long time Brooklyn residents, shrewd investigation of the socioeconomic factors at play in the borough’s current housing situation, and analysis of the De Blasio administration’s affordable housing plan (and criticism it has received).
The podcast, which is 8 episodes long, launched last Wednesday; listen to the first episode today before this week’s episode goes live. You won’t regret it.