Bed-Stuy Lost 22K Black Residents, Gained 30K Whites This Decade

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — As longtime residents can attest, Bed-Stuy has been rapidly changing over the last decade.

Now, newly-released census data reveals the extent of the transformation.

Bed-Stuy gained more than 30,000 white residents between 2010 and 2020, more than almost any other neighborhood in New York City, according to data from last year's census.

Meanwhile, more than 22,000 Black residents have left the neighborhood, dramatically shifting its racial makeup, data shows.

The change was most striking in the eastern portion of the neighborhood, where the number of white residents increased five-fold, the most of any "Neighborhood Tabulation Area" tracked in the census data. The western portion of the neighborhood was not far behind — white residents more than doubled in that section, data shows.

The local transformation reflects trends happening across Brooklyn, which saw the largest decline in its Black population of any borough between the two census counts. Brooklyn's white population increased as a whole by 8.4 percent during that time, according to the data.

As a whole, Bed-Stuy's population increased by more than 22,000 residents between 2010 and 2020.

Keep reading for an analysis of each trend, including interactive maps. (The maps display best on a web browser.)

(Note: West Bed-Stuy is marked as the old moniker "Bedford" in the map and East Bed-Stuy as "Stuyvesant Heights.")

As mentioned, the eastern portion of Bed-Stuy — which extends roughly from Saratoga Avenue to Throop Avenue — saw the most dramatic transformation in terms of percentage, with the white population increasing from 2,675 in 2010 to more than 14,500 in 2020, according to the data. That's a 445 percent increase.

The biggest net increase was in the western portion of Bed-Stuy, which extends from Throop Avenue to, roughly, Classon Avenue.

A total of 18,186 white residents moved into that portion of the neighborhood over the last decade, increasing its white population from about 13,300 to 31,500, according to the data.

Bed-Stuy was among several neighborhoods where the white population at least doubled in the borough.

Others include Bushwick, Northern Crown Heights and Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, according to the data.

Both sections of Bed-Stuy lost between 20 and 25 percent of their Black population over the last decade.

In the eastern portion of the neighborhood, the Black population dipped roughly 11,500 residents, from about 57,000 in 2010 to 45,600 in 2020, data shows.

The western portion of the neighborhood lost more than 10,500 Black residents, shifting from a population of 41,300 in 2010 to around 31,000 in 2020.

Across the city, the declines were only beaten by Northern Crown Heights, which saw its Black population fall by nearly 12,000 residents.

Taken together, the changes in the neighborhood's populations led to a dramatic shift in its racial makeup.

Namely, Bed-Stuy went from being majority-Black in 2010 to having less than half of its population made up of Black residents. The white population soared from 10 percent of the neighborhood's population in 2010 to more than 26 percent in 2020, the data shows.

The neighborhood's Hispanic and Asian makeup stayed largely the same, though both increased by a couple thousand residents, data shows.

Editors note: The maps in this story are meant to help with visualization and do not include slight changes to neighborhood boundaries made in the 2020 census count. For a look at the exact boundaries to which the data corresponds, click here.

This is the first in a series of articles breaking down insights from the 2020 Census in Bed-Stuy. To stay on top of future installments, subscribe to Bed-Stuy Patch