Photo by Justin Shu
Park Slope may be the winner of the New York Magazine best neighborhood analysis (as if that neighborhood’s collective head isn’t big enough already, what with Amy Sohn’s book and all that), but Prospect Heights is the best for the young, single and cash-strapped. So says the livability calculator, an addictive gizmo where you plug in your criteria and it spits out the best places for you to live. By that standard, Prospect Heights is right there as the city’s #2 spot, and Brooklyn’s best.
The list was put together by a fancy political pollster and 12 weighted neighborhood-evaluating criteria. Here’s the order of BK neighborhoods if you’re young, single and cash-strapped (affordability given maximum weight, schools given none, and with the other criteria mixed in):
1) Prospect Heights
2) Carroll Gardens/Gowanus
3) Williamsburg
4) Red Hook
5) Park Slope
6) Greenpoint
7) Ft. Greene/Clinton Hill
8) Cobble Hill/Boerum Hill
9) DUMBO/Downtown Brooklyn
10) Bushwick
11) Bay Ridge
12) Bed-Stuy
13) Brooklyn Heights
14) Brighton Beach
15) Sunset Park
16) Ditmas Park/Kensington
17) Sheepshead Bay
18) Crown Heights
If you tweak even further and make affordability the one and only thing that matters, Bed-Stuy’s the winner. But in that scenario, food, nightlife, shopping, transit, diversity and everything else but your cheap hovel simply doesn’t exist.
So, Prospect Heights looks pretty good. But there’s still so much to consider. How about preponderance of 99-cent stores? Or proximity to $2 drafts? Or all the other stuff that’s launched Brooklyn into brokester greatness? We’re putting the question to you: What’s the best BK neighborhood for brokesters?
