NEW YORK CITY-From a “Tech Triangle” to a downtown multicultural arts district, city officials, developers and neighborhood institutions predicted that the future of Brooklyn’s real estate growth will be based in new clusters. “We need to embrace smart planning and see where industries are beginning to form,” said New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who kicked off the Brooklyn Historical Society’s “Real Estate Roundtable” on Tuesday afternoon, a quarterly luncheon series dedicated to examining, analyzing and reviewing the critical issues in Brooklyn real estate. “We need to ask how we can see those clusters and then help them really grow in ways that are significant,” she added.

Quinn proposed that DUMBO, Downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Navy Yard could emerge as a “Silicon Valley of the East” based on its potential for high-tech job growth and strong existing infrastructure. “We could make a very powerful Brooklyn tech triangle,” she said, explaining that transportation issues and other zoning concerns would need to be mitigated, but said it wouldn’t be impossible. “Look at Hudson Yards. It wasn’t easy to create a whole new neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan, it wasn’t easy to expand the 7 train outside of the MTA’s capital budget through the economic downturn, but we did it,” Quinn added. “If we want to create neighborhoods that are real clusters that have the potential for tech to grow and boom and make New York the tech capital of the world, we can do this.”

And with the resurgence of neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Flatbush, Bushwick, Gowanus and Ditmas Park, Brooklyn has been recognized nationally as “the coolest place to live in America” by GQ Magazine. The borough’s emergence as an arts and cultural hub has also played a role in its future planning efforts. Karen Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, said the master plan for BAM Cultural District is coming to life through the development of mixed-income housing, affordable rehearsal and performance space and new entertainment facilities. “There used to be a tremendous struggle to get people over the bridge,” Hopkins said. “At that time, we didn’t have the artist population that we now have.”