Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY

Consistently ranked as one of New York’s most desirable neighborhoods, Park Slope is Brooklyn’s gentrified hood du jour, with quiet residential areas abutting funky urban clutter and tree-shaded brownstones just down the street from specialty burger joints.

Skyrocketing prices in Manhattan during the 1980s brought a number of upper-middle-class families to the formerly blue-collar neighborhood, and gentrification has only increased in the intervening decades. Top-rated restaurants, bars, and shops have sprung up with the new crowd, while many of the historic row houses, brownstones, and Romanesque mansions that line the streets – especially along Prospect Park West – have been painstakingly maintained by dedicated preservationists.

Park Slope’s close proximity to Prospect Park, as well as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Brooklyn Museum, gives its large population of trendy young professionals plenty of daytime activities to enjoy, and shopping needs are covered at everything from major chain stores to boutiques, most notably along Fifth and Seventh Avenues.

Though Park Slope has trended more toward young-yuppie-parent-to-be than hipster-music-lover, there are still a wide range of nightlife options, especially on Fifth, where edgy bars and laid-back pubs go toe-to-toe with fine dining.