After World War II and through the 1970s, New York experienced a wave of affordable housing projects, many of which benefited from federal and state programs, making the city a haven for middle-income and working class families for decades to come.

Roosevelt Island was one such place. In 1969, this strip of land in the East River became a mixed income, family friendly neighborhood thanks to the Urban Development Corp. and architect Philip Johnson’s vision. By 1989, the middle class was already being driven out by rising rents. Last year, the island became home to two new luxury developments, the Octagon and Riverwalk.

Then there’s Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Built in the 1940s to provide affordable housing to World War II veterans and their families, the development became an enclave for the middle class. In 2003, Rose Associates took over management, revamped whatever apartments it could, and rented them at market rates. This fall, Metropolitan Life sold the property to Tishman Speyer Properties for $5.4 billion.

The long arm of gentrification has been systematically decimating these corners of affordability. Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for the New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) observes, “Manhattan has gone from being culturally and economically diverse to being a playground for the rich. Go out into the boroughs and you’ll see the same dynamic.”

Will Spring Creek Towers, originally Starrett City, located on the east side of Brooklyn near Jamaica Bay, meet the same fate? Built in 1975, the development is home to 14,000 middle- and low-income residents and includes 46 residential towers, its own schools, churches, synagogues, shopping center and security force, comprising the largest federally subsidized rental complex in the country. On Nov. 30, it was announced that all this was on the market. CB Richard Ellis Inc., the company that brokered the Stuyvesant Town deal, will be handling the sale. Experts say the winning bid could exceed $1 billion.

How ironic that Starrett City, conceived as an experiment in integrated housing, may fall victim to the segregating effects of gentrification. Until 1988 when the courts terminated the practice, management maintained a tenant ratio of 70 percent white to 30 percent black in an attempt to promote integration and prevent “white flight.”

Today, white flight isn’t an issue in the area. A report issued by NY ACORN found that between 1990 and 2000, the African-American population of Community Board 2 (Downtown, Fort Greene, Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill) decreased by 17.2 percent. At Starrett City, this is not yet the case.

More than 90 percent of the 5,881 units are subsidized, either via Section 8—which limits rent to 30 percent of a tenant’s income and has the government contribute the rest—or via the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program—which offers landlords low-interest mortgage loans and tax exemptions in exchange for limitation on profits, income limits on tenants and supervision by the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR). Developments can be withdrawn from the program after 20 years upon prepayment of the mortgage, at which point they’re no longer subject to DHCR regulation and needn’t be kept affordable for moderate-income families.

This is the primary concern should Starrett City be sold. Kathleen Cudahy of Connelly & McLaughlin, the group representing the limited partners that own Starrett City, says, “Yes, any owner has the right to opt out after the expiration of the Mitchell-Lama period … But it’s not likely to be the case here.” She explains, “This isn’t prime Manhattan property. It’s not like they’re going to be able to turn it into $1.5 million condos. It’s not terribly accessible to Manhattan. It’s a beautiful, well-managed and well-kept development, but I don’t believe there’s a market for a high-scale luxury building or condos.”

But Rosen maintains, “Suffice to say, the bottom line here is that no one is buying this property unless they think they can squeeze more of a rent roll out of it, and there’s only one way to do that, which is find a way to raise the rent. No rational owner is going to pay a billion dollars for these buildings unless they think there is both an immediate and long-term return far in excess of a subsidized loan. Unless the buyer is engaged in some fanatical act of charity, they’re looking to make a reasonable rate of return.”

Historically, New York is a city that’s pulled itself up by the bootstraps, defined and strengthened by the struggle that comes from the convergence of cultures, classes and ideas. But the disappearance of the middle class jeopardizes this reputation. In 2003, Mayor Michael Bloomberg described the city as “a luxury product,” adding, “New York offers tremendous value, but only for those companies able to capitalize on it.”

Rosen says, “For ACORN, this is unfortunately a big example of something that we see all the time, which is radical gentrification of a neighborhood where developers are taking advantage of a loophole in federal and state programs that will allow them to flip once-affordable buildings into luxury buildings and displace tens of thousands of poor people.”

He adds, “We are at grave risk of becoming an even more unequal, more divided, more polarized city. Very few kids growing up in New York will have the experience of going to school with kids from different walks of life.”