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Last week in the magazine, Adam Davidson looked for signs of an economic revival in the Bronx, the poorest urban county in the nation. Online commenters on Davidson’s article were especially vocal in response to the question, “Why Can’t the Bronx Be More Like Brooklyn?” Affordable rents have attracted a new wave of migrants to the borough. More than 16,000 Manhattanites moved to the Bronx between 2005 and 2009, making it the most popular destination for New Yorkers on the move. The influx of new residents has stoked fears that the Bronx would become another beachhead for wealthy, white-collar professionals in search of the next Brooklyn.

But a deeper look at who is moving to the Bronx suggests that the fears of gentrification are overstated. Nearly 80 percent of new migrants have no bachelor’s degree; 73 percent are ethnic minorities; 44 percent live below the poverty line. Unlike the other boroughs adjacent to Manhattan, the Bronx has absorbed only a trickle of gentrifiers, and a tide of urban poor. Read the full column to find out why the Bronx can’t (and shouldn’t) become another Brooklyn.