a typical park slope street

Culture
Park Slope has a reputation as a politically progressive activist community. Much effort has been expended in the preservation of the historic integrity of the neighborhood, and Park Slope is the “Recycling Capital” of New York City. Voluntary recycling programs had been ongoing in the neighborhood since the 1970’s, and the neighborhood has hosted such innovative waste management programs as the first Citywide Household Hazardous Waste Collection Day, an intensive recycling pilot program that diverted 35% of the municipal solid waste into recycling waste streams, a battery recycling project, and annual voluntary Christmas Tree Recycling drop-off points, which eventually grew into a Citywide collection program.

Social concerns also occupy a high place on the neighborhood’s agenda. The area is home to numerous civic, merchant and social organizations that offer many forums for social discourse. The Park Slope Food Co-op is the largest member-owned and operated food co-op in the country, with over 10,000 members, many of whom participate on the Co-op’s political committees, addressing issues like genetically modified foods and the use of pesticides. The area also prides itself on its diversity and contains a spectrum of socioeconomic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. For example, it has the highest lesbian population in the City and has played host to Brooklyn’s annual Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Pride parade and celebration since 1997.

Of course, when walking the streets of Park Slope, you can’t help but notice all the babies, and all the yuppies. It seems like as soon as Manhattan professionals hit about 30 and have a kid, they buy a $3,000 titanium stroller and immediately transfer to the Slope. I have regularly seen double and – if you can believe it – triple strollers rolling down 7^th avenue on weekends, giving rise to the uniquely Park Slope phenomenon of “stroller gridlock. And “gentrification” has become a related hallmark issue in the Slope. For the past 20 or 30 years, many parts of the neighborhood were occupied by a blue-collar Latino community. But more recently there has been a rise in more affluent young professionals, and the shops and restaurants that cater to them. Real estate prices have ballooned, and building owners who used to rent are starting to sell. On the first of each month, you can see a new young urban professional moving into the apartment formerly occupied by an older Latino family.