By: Marilyn Gelber

If there’s one thing we can say for sure about Brooklyn, it’s that the last couple of decades have resulted in huge changes for the borough. Or at least that’s how it feels, right?

True, we were a bit mystified last spring when the 2010 Census told us that the Bronx grew twice as fast as Brooklyn over the past decade, with Brooklyn’s population inching upward at less than 2 percent.

The Bloomberg administration also shared our disbelief in the low counts and, given the concern over not getting a fair share of federal aid, filed a formal appeal in August 2011.

It was a prickly reminder of how important data is—the sheer counting and recording of our community’s stats—and the frustrating yet brilliant foresight our founding fathers had in building this tracking into our Constitution.

So: Had it truly been a decade of change for Brooklyn? Or were we all just too enamored with reading about the “new” Brooklyn?

A few weeks ago, our research partners at the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College released a whopping 600 pages of Brooklyn-specific data on emerging trends over the last 20 years, in nine areas ranging from population to education, the economy, health and the environment.

The Brooklyn Community Foundation commissioned these reports because, as Brooklyn became center-stage for new development and commerce in the city, we wanted to quantify the changes we were seeing and make informed predictions about our communities’ futures.

The data is also broken out by our 18 community districts, to track trends not just boroughwide, but also by neighborhood. After all, it doesn’t take a native Brooklynite to be the one tell you how much Williamsburg has changed since the first time they strolled down Bedford Avenue—be it in 1972, 1992 or 2002.

And, yes, the reports do show impressive growth and change.