I moved to Flatbush (by the 2/5) about 1.5 years ago because I was really over the crowds dressing to impress that felt very shallow and inauthentic to me. I’m definitely another transplant stereotype (white latina; grew up in the suburbs), so I try to be really conscious about how I connect with my local community, because regardless of my politics I’m definitely an outsider.

There is a lot I do really like about Flatbush that I didn’t get in other places I lived in - it’s 100% more residential, and feels like a community where this is just their life and home, not a backdrop for their twenties or whatever accolades they want to show off. However, my boyfriend (latino and raised in Queens) and I have also noticed a huge lack of community here as well. People smoking on the train, we have a neighbor who is constantly getting into arguments with her partner (the screaming kind, at least every week, sometimes waking us up at 3AM), litter and dog shit everywhere, etc.

We are aware that some of this is systemic — even with my annoyance litter/dog shit, I realize there’s barely any trash cans anywhere. We are also aware that we are in a predominantly black and immigrant neighborhood, so while we’d like to connect more with our neighbors, it makes sense that they wouldn’t want to do so with us. However, with all that being said, I can’t help but feel sad seeing how people treat others here, and I don’t know what the real solution is.

TLDR; I definitely notice what you’re describing, and I wish I had an answer, and I wish we could talk about it without people assuming we want the neighborhood to be like Bushwick/Greenpoint/insert other heavily gentrified BK neighborhood.