New York Lawmaker Would End New Marketing Nicknames for Neighborhoods

"[N]ewly-elected Harlem Senator Brian Benjamin has introduced legislation to prevent the real estate industry and other actors from rebranding existing neighborhoods without residents' permission," reports Brendan Krisel.

"The bill — called the 'Neighborhood Integrity Act' — would require public officials to initiate a public review procedure to rename a neighborhood or modify its established geographical boundaries," adds Krisel.

The controversy has arisen after real estate brokers in South Harlem began using the SoHa moniker to rebrand a sliver of Central Harlem: West 110th to 125th streets between Morningside Drive and Park Avenue.

This is hardly the first time such a controversy has arisen—or that a state lawmaker has tried to pass legislation to halt the practice. In 2011, then-New York Assembymember Hakeem Jeffries proposed legislation "to block real-estate brokers from turning genuine neighborhood monickers into a bowl of alphabet soup," wrote Gary Buiso at the time.

The practice is exactly the same as the SoDoSoPa neighborhood satirized by South Park in 2015, so it's also hardly issue endemic to New York City.

Sarina Trangle chose a different frame for the latest controversy, surveying the city to find the practice falling out of fashion. Perhaps the practice will soon be too cliché for real estate brokers to even suggest—making state legislation unnecessary or obsolete.