New York metropolitan area eight subregions are often further divided. For instance, Long Island can be divided into its South and North Shores (usually when speaking about Nassau County and western Suffolk County) and the East End. The Hudson Valley and Connecticut are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the Northern Suburbs, largely because of the shared usage of the Metro-North Railroad system. The geographical, cultural, and economic center of the metropolitan area is New York City, which consists of five boroughs, each of which is also a county of New York State. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and
East New York, Brooklyn public assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], Home Relief, Supplemental Security Income, and Medicaid). During the 1960s, East New York transitioned from being predominately Jewish and Italian to being predominately African American and Puerto Rican. However, now East New York is more diversified, with large African American, Puerto Rican, Dominican, West Indian, and South Asian populations. Due to gentrification of other Brooklyn neighborhoods, closer to Downtown Brooklyn and Manhattan, such as Bushwick and Bed-Stuy, East New York now has one of the fastest growing Black, Latino, and Asian populations in the city. East New York consists of mixed properties