Northern Crown Heights Doubled Its White Population In A Decade

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Newly-released census data confirms what many in Crown Heights already knew: the neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying.

Across North and South Crown Heights, the neighborhood's Black population declined by 18,750 people between 2010 and 2020, according to newly released data from last year's census.

The North Crown Heights drop in Black residents was the most dramatic of any neighborhood across the five boroughs, according to City Planning.

Meanwhile, across the neighborhood, the white population grew by 14,989 during the decade.

The most dramatic shift was again in North Crown Heights, whose white population more than doubled in the last decade.

North Crown Heights also had the sharpest population growth of the two sections of the neighborhood. Almost all of the 8,500-person increase in the neighborhood's residents was found in its northern section

Overall, Crown Heights' population grew from about 127,000 in 2010 to nearly 136,000 in 2020 — an increase of about 6.7 percent. The increase was due to a gain of more than 6,600 to the population identified as "other" or multi-racial and a spikes of nearly 3,000 in the Asian and Hispanic population, data shows.

The number of residents grew even more rapidly in quickly-developing Prospect Heights, which saw an increase of 18 percent in its population between 2010 and 2020.

There, the population growth also skewed white. In fact, with an increase in white residents and a drop in the Black population, the number of white residents has now surpassed half of the neighborhood's population, the data shows. There was also an increase in the Asian population and those that identify as "other" or multi-racial, data shows.

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

As mentioned, the section of Crown Heights with the largest jump in its white population — both in net increase and percentage — was the northern section of the neighborhood, which stretches from Atlantic Avenue down to Eastern Parkway.

The white population in this stretch of the neighborhood more than doubled, from around 7,000 residents in 2010 to almost 19,000 residents in 2020, the data shows.

In South Crown Heights — which extends from Eastern Parkway to, roughly, Empire Boulevard — the white population grew by about 3,000 people, from nearly 13,000 in 2010 to more than 16,000 in 2020, data shows.

In Prospect Heights, there was a 3,313-person gain in the number of white residents. That coupled with a 1,459-person drop in the number of Black residents brought the white population from 47 percent of the neighborhood's population in 2010, to 54 percent in 2020, according to the data.

The trends in Crown and Prospect Heights mirror those across the borough.

Brooklyn saw an 8.4 percent jump in its white population between the two counts, meaning the number of white residents is now approaching 1 million.

Prospect Heights and both sections of Crown Heights lost between 20 and 25 percent of their Black population between 2010 and 2020, the data shows.

In terms of net loss, North Crown Heights once again took the cake. The Black population decreased from roughly 57,000 in 2010 to 45,000 in 2020, one of the biggest dips of any neighborhood across the five boroughs, according to the data and City Planning.

In South Crown Heights, the Black population fell by nearly 7,000 people, from around 32,000 in 2010 to nearly 25,000 in 2020, data shows.

Prospect Heights' Black population fell about 1,500 people during the decade.

Again, the trends reflect what happened throughout the borough.

Brooklyn was home to the largest decline in its Black population of the five boroughs, according to the data.

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 Crown and Prospect Heights. To stay on top of future installments, subscribe to Prospect Heights/Crown Heights Patch.