Below is a map of Homecrest, Brooklyn, NY taken from www.city-data.com which clearly defines the borders of the neighborhood. According to the map, Homecrest spans from Coney Island Avenue to Gerritsen Avenue and from Kings Highway to Avenue X, for a total area of about 2.2 miles. The population of Homecrest, Brooklyn at the time of writing of the article on www.weichert.com was just over 71,000 people, with the median age being 40.96 years (see bar graph below). The data represented on this map shows what percent of the population in different parts of Homecrest is Asian. These percentages range from 1% to 54% with the most Asian people living on, or very close to, Avenue U. These percentages are rather low when compared to Manhattan’s Chinatown, where the percent of Asians is approximately 95%, on average, with small portions of the neighborhood falling just below 80% Asian. Although this comparison may lead one to claim that Homecrest should not be considered a Chinatown, one must keep in mind that Homecrest’s area is over twenty times that of Manhattan’s Chinatown (2.189 square miles vs. 0.108 square miles). Additionally, Chinatown’s population density is 82, 417 people per square mile, while Homecrest’s is 32,488 per square mile, so the percentages of Asians in each area are very misleading (www.city-data.com).
I live not too far from the section of Avenue U that is within Homecrest, and, over the years, I have witnessed the evolution of the neighborhood into a Chinatown. Over the past decade the number of Asian grocery stores and restaurant on Avenue U has grown significantly. Homecrest has become Brooklyn’s second largest Chinatown and considering the fact that it was born less than two decades ago, we can safely conclude that it has much more potential for development. This large land area, when compared to that of Manhattan’s Chinatown, and the continuing migration of Chinese residents of New York City, especially from other parts of Brooklyn, into the neighborhood, will certainly allow for this Chinatown to become as established as the Chinatown which we call Chinatown.
http://www.weichert.com/search/community/neighborhood.aspx?hood=5689
http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Homecrest-Brooklyn-NY.html
