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8. Park Slope

Why You Should Move Here

The neighborhood may have become a punch line to jokes about baby strollers and over parenting, but there’s a reason the Slope topped Nate Silver’s list of the best neighborhoods in New York last year: block after block of leafy trees and stoops descending from stately brownstones; the proximity to Prospect Park, the nicest place in the borough; the copious restaurants and bars.

What the Future Holds

Then again, Park Slope’s position as the borough’s kid-capital is slipping, with erstwhile hip Williamsburg poised to take over. Will the whole neighborhood become as cool as its hipper south side already is? Or will parents simply take over the borough? The ranks of all those fogeys opposed to the Prospect Park West bike lane are bound to start thinning.

Where You’ll Find Us

If it were socially acceptable to erect a tent in a banh mi shop, we’d live at Hanco’s, feeding off the sandwiches. If evicted, you’d find us down at V-Spot, enjoying some of the heartiest vegan fare in Brooklyn, or spread out in the park’s Nethermead, playing with a stranger’s dog, reading a book (from the Community Bookstore—perhaps a graphic novel from Galaxy Comics even!)—or illicitly drinking a bottle of wine (from Red, White and Bubbly).

Second Thoughts

All those lingering parents do have an adverse effect. We lived here briefly, and a neighbor yelled at us during our housewarming to move our barbecue because we were “smoking out” his kid. That same neighbor woke us up one Sunday yelling at the guy above us to stop smoking marijuana on his fire escape. Hell, we used to sit and brood about those kids upstairs making such a racket. Nice things are for old people—old people who can afford the million dollars a year it takes to live well here.

How Much

Average rent of a two-bedroom apartment: $2,900