Aja Brown Quotes

I come from nowhere Brooklyn, New York. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days Williamsburg is kind of a hip area, but when I grew up there, the taxi drivers wouldn't even go over the bridge, it was so dangerous.

I used to live in the Bronx, then I lived uptown on 106th St. and Broadway, and finally I moved to Harlem right before it became gentrified. I lived on 120th St. between Fifth and Lenox Aves. in a little brownstone. I knew the neighborhood was changing when they started putting trees in the middle of the block.

I'm from the burbs. I've been in the hood, but I don't live there. I have lived in the hood, but I don't live there anymore. I lived in Harlem, and that was crazy, even though Harlem is a lot nicer than it used to be.

The 'Shoreditchification' of certain areas, although it's seen as a negative by some, has actually been very positive for parts of London.

People think that Detroit is this barren wasteland. While there are parts that are not as nice as others, the misconception is not true. It is definitely not a thriving community in Detroit, but it is getting there. There is a lot of heart and love in this city.

I would encourage more development in the boroughs outside of Manhattan as well. I think it's great that this natural emergence has occurred in the lower part of Midtown, but there's tremendous potential in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island as well.

You know where entrepreneurship in my opinion has to go? Into the inner city.

The artistic element of Manhattan has kind of moved to Brooklyn. Has it changed it? Yeah. Has it ruined it? I would say no. It is what it is. I say better that than an urban war zone.

I changed the city of New York. I gave people back their morale.

We saw hundreds of programs to redevelop the central city, the neighborhoods, in the past.

No offense to Bushwick, where all my neighbors greeted me on the street and there is a growing arts community and a curious beauty to its industrial zone, but Bushwick is no Williamsburg, even if the real estate agents would have you believe it is.

Sometimes, I feel that Manhattan in particular has gotten really tame and gentrified or something.

New York has always been a city of change and a city about change, and it is a back-leading development. Nobody's going to want to come to New York if it looks like another strip mall.

Liberals want to live downtown. All over America - in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Georgetown - there are crowds of liberals living in the gritty, ugly, dirty neighborhoods sensible people are trying to flee.

In about 2002, I moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, to Red Hook.

Rather than think of it as somewhere to run from, the Bronx is somewhere to invest.

We want to shine a light on this great city of Baltimore. I can tell you, I love this city.

Buildings like Penn Station attract our protective instincts not only because of their beauty but because we fear what will come to replace them.

I think Giuliani started a trend that Bloomberg continued with rampant gentrification, and I think it's tough because why would any city choose not to do that?

The refurbishing and rebuilding of Fenway Park since 2001 has created a new urban neighborhood in Boston.

New York has changed amazingly; it's gentrified everywhere, and it's a much gentler place.

My take on gentrification and change is it's usually always a better thing, because when you see all these businesses open and flourishing, that means there are more jobs.

Some people are afraid of gentrification, but what I see is young people want to live in a different world. And they see possibilities here. They see that rents are relatively cheap compared to places like New York and California.

I'm not dismissing prostitutes, but a lot has changed. This so-called gentrification, it can never be stopped.

When I read, you know, a rough neighborhood of Portland, I'm like - what? - they didn't have kombucha bars there?