Panel discussion at Park Slope Food Coop devolves into comparative borough ranking system with no agreed methodology and one agreed conclusion
Brooklyn Man Spends Four Hours Explaining Why His Neighbourhood Is Better Than Every Other Neighbourhood
NEW YORK, NEW YORK — A 34-year-old Park Slope resident identified as Derek Hutchins spent approximately four hours at a Park Slope Food Coop community meeting Saturday delivering what he described as “a comprehensive comparative analysis” of New York City neighbourhoods, in which Park Slope emerged, in every category assessed, as the superior option — a finding that several attendees noted bore a striking relationship to the fact that Derek lives in Park Slope and chose the assessment criteria.
For related London satire and commentary, see Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
The Analysis
Hutchins, a data analyst who moved to Park Slope from Hoboken in 2019 and has since developed what those who know him describe as “an impressive and at times alarming depth of local identity formation,” brought a printed handout ranking fourteen Brooklyn neighbourhoods across twelve categories including: proximity to Prospect Park, farmer’s market quality, coffee shop density per square mile, sidewalk width, “general vibe,” brunch availability, cycling infrastructure, school performance, composting participation rate, bookshop presence, and something he called “ambient intentionality,” which he declined to define beyond saying that “you know it when you experience it.” Park Slope scored highest in all twelve categories. A Bay Ridge resident asked how Hutchins had weighted “ambient intentionality” against “affordability,” which did not appear in the analysis at all. Hutchins said affordability was “a separate conversation” and moved on.
The British would recognise the type immediately. British slang for stupid covers the near-neighbour of this type, but the precise character — the person at the gathering who has formed a comprehensive theory of a situation in which they personally are central, who presents this theory with the confidence of someone who has done research, and who receives alternative data points as categorisation errors rather than evidence — is more precisely a prat, confident and cheerful and categorically unreachable.
The Discussion
The discussion lasted until the building’s 9pm closing time, approximately three hours and twenty minutes longer than the agenda item had been allocated. Topics covered included: whether “ambient intentionality” was a real thing; whether a person who moved to a neighbourhood five years ago could claim it as a cultural identity; whether the farmer’s market metric was measuring quality or price point; and, for approximately forty minutes, whether Greenwood Heights was a real neighbourhood or a real estate category, a debate that produced the meeting’s only unanimous agreement, which was that nobody was certain.
A woman from Crown Heights suggested the analysis might have benefited from including Crown Heights. Hutchins said Crown Heights was “interesting” and he had “considered including it” but the sample size was adequate at fourteen. The Crown Heights resident asked what the fourteen had in common other than not being Crown Heights. Hutchins said they represented “a geographically coherent sample of established Brooklyn communities,” which the Crown Heights resident received as an answer and did not accept as one. The meeting ended at 9pm when the facilities manager turned the lights off twice. Hutchins distributed a revised handout on his way out incorporating, he said, “feedback from tonight,” though all twelve category weights were identical and Park Slope remained first overall. He has announced a follow-up presentation covering Manhattan neighbourhoods. He lives in Park Slope and has not announced plans to change this, which several attendees noted as relevant context for the Manhattan analysis. British slang for drunk provides a useful parallel register for states in which one’s relationship to obvious reality becomes complicated, and London slang words provide the vocabulary developed over centuries of encountering Derek at gatherings across the city, always confident, always prepared, and always the last to leave.
The Ambient Intentionality Clarification
Hutchins subsequently published a blog post titled “On Ambient Intentionality: A Clarification,” which defines the concept as “the degree to which a neighbourhood’s built environment and community norms reflect conscious choices about how to live, rather than default configurations of suburban development.” This definition, several readers noted, is either a sophisticated urban planning concept or a description of why Park Slope feels different from Bay Ridge, and that “feels different from” is not, in the strictest analytical sense, a metric. Hutchins responded that metrics are tools for capturing reality, not replacements for it. The blog post received 340 views. The Crown Heights resident posted a comment that said simply: “Still waiting. Still have data.” The Manhattan analysis is forthcoming. Park Slope is expected to perform well.
The Park Slope Food Coop is itself a useful frame for understanding the Hutchins phenomenon. Founded in 1973, the coop operates on a membership model requiring members to contribute two hours and forty-five minutes of work per month in exchange for access to its below-retail-price inventory. It has approximately 17,000 active members, a waiting list that has reached several years in length at various points in its history, and a governance structure that generates exactly the kind of passionate meeting at which a four-hour neighbourhood ranking presentation can occur. It is, in its way, the ambient intentionality of Park Slope made institutional: a community organisation so committed to its own values that it has waiting lists. Derek Hutchins is, in this context, not an anomaly but a product. Park Slope produces Dereks the way Williamsburg produces essays about coffee.
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