Brooklyn

Brooklyn is one of the five boroughs of New York and the most populous. The number of inhabitants was estimated at more than 2.6 million in 2015. If the boroughs of New York City were to exist separately, Brooklyn would be the third-most populous in the United States, surpassed only by Los Angeles and Chicago. The borough shares the same boundaries as Kings County.

The borough is very diverse culturally, thanks to New York’s status as primary gateway for legal immigration. It has several neighborhoods which function somewhat as ethnic enclaves. Jewish Americans are concentrated in areas such as Borough Park, Flatbush and Williamsburg. More than 200,000 people of Chinese origin are concentrated in the southern sections of the city, including Sunset Park. There are also neighborhoods with predominant black, Latino, Russian and Caribbean populations, among others.

For a long time, the economy of Brooklyn depended mainly on manufacturing, but a decline has set in recent years. Construction and services are two rapidly-growing sectors in the economy. Most businesses here are operated on small-scale basis. Thousands of private-sector jobs are available at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, although total employment has dropped sharply from WW II high. Brooklyn has also been attracting more private investment since the re-zoning of the downtown was done. Silicon Valley has expanded into the borough with more and more technology startups setting up shops there.