Local Issues & Insights From Our 2024 Listening Tour

Since 2022, Brooklyn Org’s President and CEO Dr. Jocelynne Rainey has visited neighborhoods across our borough as part of our annual Listening Tours, to meet with community members and give them the space to talk about the issues that impact them the most.

Through these community conversations, we aim is to reach every part of Brooklyn over a three year cycle; 2024 marked the conclusion of our first three-years of conversations. We will now be spending 2025 amplifying all that we heard across these past three years, as we aim to elevate community concerns and solutions in this critical citywide municipal election year.

2024 Listening Tour Findings

To share out the findings and feedback from our 2024 Listening Tour, we hosted a webinar earlier this month, covering nine diverse and deeply distinct neighborhoods from Sheepshead Bay to South Williamsburg.

You can stream it here:

Video

Local Issues, Big Impact

The 2024 Listening Tour covered the following neighborhoods:

• Downtown Brooklyn
• Flatlands
• Industrial Zones
• Mill Basin/Marine Park/Bergen Beach
• New Lots
• Park Slope
• Columbia Street Waterfront
• Sheepshead Bay / Gerritsen Beach
• South Williamsburg/Broadway Triangle

Though the needs of these neighborhoods are as diverse as the people who call them home, we found that there are a number of issues impacting Brooklynites boroughwide.

Top 3 Trends Across Sessions:

1. Food Insecurity
2. Available Space
3. Youth Development

Emerging Trends, New Since 2023:

1. Immigration
2. Development
3. Public Spaces

What’s Ahead

To ensure that we take our listening tour participants’ feedback to heart, we’re moving forward with a number of exciting, actionable next steps.

1. Neighborhood Collective Impact Project: Applications for our second round of $25,000  grants for 2022-24 Listening Tour participants open soon!
2. Amplifying The Peoples’ Voice: We are partnering with NYC foundations and The 5BORO Institute to conduct a public poll on issues from our Listening Tours and host community events, including Candidate Forums and Town Halls, to elevate community-driven solutions ahead of the citywide election.
3. Listening Tours Return in 2026: Following the completion of our first 3-year Listening Tour cycle, our neighborhood conversations will resume in 2026 with 5 regional meetings per year from 2026-2028.