Generally speaking, the improvements coming to Bed-Stuy are a result of the proverbial rising tide that lifts all boats. More specifically, there have been a couple of concrete steps taken to steer the Bed-Stuy boat: an upzoning of the neighborhood's southern portion, south of Quincy and Gate streets; and the February 2007 establishment of the Bed-Stuy Gateway Business Improvement District, which expects to be fully funded by the beginning of 2009. The BID encompasses Fulton from Bedford Avenue to Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Nostrand Avenue from Halsey Street to Atlantic Avenue.

In recent years, Bed-Stuy's population has begun rebounding and the demographic mix of that population has been diversifying. Those with a historical bent might point out that the demographics are returning to the kind of diversity seen here in former years. Bed-Stuy was the childhood home, after all, of both Norman Mailer and Lena Horne, and it remains home to a sizeable cluster of brownstones.

Still, as Amirkhanian tells Real Estate New York, a lot of work remains to be done, not least of which is to get past the current market. "There's no question that things have softened," he says. "Especially on vacant land, developers are going to want to come in and take property at a steal. One important change I've seen, and one which is happening across most parts of Brooklyn, is that developers are demanding that these development sites make sense from a rental perspective. That puts a whole different number on the value of a development lot."