Priced out: Stuyvesant Town and the loss of middle-class neighborhoods, by Rachael A. Woldoff, Lisa M. Morrison, and Michael R. Glass

romanticize. Better than the rest of us, however, he brings to bear evenhanded acumen, in reporting back what he hears—for instance, about crime and gentrification and the coded way in which people discuss these. (Helmreich works in conflict resolution.) He has creative insights, too—as in why hipsters buy vintage clothing. (Read page 26 to find out.) The best thing about the book and prospective series is what some might otherwise think of as a defect. The Brooklyn Nobody Knows is a snapshot of a dynamic place in the 2010s, at the height of the Brooklyn hype. Thus, the book is like the WPA Guide to New York City (The Federal Writers’ Project, 1939) of the 1930s. Though the reportage will too soon feel dated, it will then enjoy a second life as a historical record. There are several ways to read this book. Read it one neighborhood at a time before making a visit and it can serve as a guidebook. Alternatively, read it cover to cover as I did and you realize the thoroughness with which Helmreich describes the people and condition of Brooklyn in the 2010s. You choose. Whatever you do, read the insightful introduction. It starts with “BROOKLYN. The land of diversity, change, engagement, self image” (p. ix). Helmreich goes on to explain what he means by each of these traits. Engagement is especially meaningful given national politics today. “To be one of this borough’s estimated 2.6 million residents is to be a person who constantly encounters and is accepting of people different from oneself” (p. 12). Waves of migration compel interaction. The public realm serves as a meeting place and how “what appears to be a map of separate communities is actually far more porous” (p. 12) due to an economy and landscape of interdependence between social classes, races, and ethnicities. Helmreich, in talking about engagement, only left out the Brooklynite’s tendency to be opinionated. As a fourth-generation Brooklynite, I say fuhgeddaboudit: If you love walking cities, buy the book.