More on Park Slope Being One of the "Ten Great Neighborhoods"

Yesterday, it was noted fairly widely that Park Slope made the American Planning Association's annual list of America's "Ten Great Neighborhoods." As such, it joined neighborhoods like North Beach in San Francisco as places the venerable APA counts as nice places to live around the country.

Here's a little of what APA had to say about the Slope:

Community Participation Sustains Historic Design and Modern Amenities

The Park Slope neighborhood of today retains much of the architecture that defined it 100 years ago...The American Planning Association has selected Park Slope as one of 10 Great Neighborhoods in America for its architectural and historical features and its diverse mix of residents and businesses, all of which are supported and preserved by its active and involved citizenry.

"No neighborhood in America has a finer and more intact collection of late 19th-century row houses than Park Slope," notes architectural historian and Columbia University professor Andrew Dolkart. "Block after block is virtually unaltered, with houses ranging from grand townhouses designed by Brooklyn's leading architects, to long rows of vernacular speculator-built housing designed by the obscure architects who provided character to so many urban neighborhoods."

Park Slope has a little bit of everything: stately brownstones, attractive apartment buildings, a farmer's market, independently owned businesses, transit, an adjoining park, and active residents, some of whom moved to the area as urban homesteaders when it was being abandoned in the 1960s...Historic in design and modern in amenity, the livability of Brooklyn's Park Slope is no hyperbole. Its architectural, recreational, transportation, and community assets all combine to make it a great community of lasting value.

The full item is available here.