Bedford Hill

Bedford Hill is a new neighborhood name describing a central portion of the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. It is bordered on the west by Clinton Hill and the east by Bedford Stuyvesant. It is composed largely of areas that have traditionally been considered part of Bedford Stuyvesant but are now in the process of gentrification. According to some, the neighborhood constitutes approximately 24 square blocks, running from Dekalb Street to Gates Street, between Franklin and Marcy Avenues. It is overseen by the 79th and 88th Police Precincts. Its name is a mixture of the names of nearby Clinton Hill and Bedford Avenue, its central thoroughfare. The name "Bedford Hill" is not recognized by many local residents, many of whom continue to refer to the area by its traditional name, Bed-Stuy.
Development and demographic changes
Several factors have aided in the gentrification of this section of Bedford-Stuyvesant, including: rapidly rising rents throughout the 2000s economic boom which forced low-income students and young professionals increasingly further from Manhattan and the neighborhood's proximity to Pratt Institute and the attendant student housing needs. 2010 Census data shows Bedford Hill to be among the fastest-gentrifying areas in the country.
The neighborhood's shifts first began with students from the Pratt Institute in Clinton Hill moving into Bedford-Stuyvesant looking for cheap living space. Artists and young creative professionals began following, and discovered a neighborhood filled with blocks filled with preserved brownstones and turn of the century apartment buildings. Real-estate developers responding to increased interested in the area began building new condominiums to fill the demand. Now the neighborhood is a diverse mix of long term African American residents, students, young creative professionals, and increasingly more young Caucasian families who are discovering a hip, yet still affordable neighborhood.
This trend has been extensively acknowledged in local media. While reports tend to identify the area under discussion as Beford Stuyvesant, the activity is in truth very locally limited within the relatively sprawling area loosely identified with that neighborhood.
==Debate over the name "Bedford Hill"==
Like most neighborhoods in New York City, Bedford Hill is not an official municipal entity with legally defined boundaries. Instead, the name and boundaries of the neighborhood are loosely defined by the people who live there, and there is significant debate and discussion over how to properly describe the area. Bedford Hill is a very recent neighborhood name and is not widely recognized by either the new or long-term African-American residents of the area. Most continue to call the area Bedford-Stuyvesant, or simply "Bed-Stuy." Some consider themselves part of Clinton Hill, although that neighborhood has usually been thought to end at Classon Avenue or Franklin Avenue.
According to Lanisihia Goodwin, a journalist with The Brooklyn Paper, some refer to the area as "Clinton-Stuy." A spring 2012 event centered on exploring the neighborhood's bars and restaurants was titled "Total Bedford Hill Immersion," indicating some degree of local support for the appellation "Bedford Hill."
The area's State Assemblyman, Hakeem Jeffries, has argued that the current renaming of Brooklyn neighborhoods is an attempt by real-estate developers to quickly "re-brand" them and could be misleading for potential buyers. He pointed to a similar attempt just a few blocks to the south to re-brand the rapidly gentrifying border area of Prospect Heights and Crown Heights as "ProCro." He is promoting legislation, titled "The Neighborhood Integrity Act," to create a community-based process for agreeing on accurate names for neighborhoods. New York Times reporter Cara Buckley wrote about the controversy over new neighborhood names, noting that many new names had been floated for many different areas of the city over the years and only a few had stuck around in the long-term.

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