Quality-of-life gripes in the city differ markedly depending on which borough New Yorkers live in, a survey showed yesterday.
If you rank street noise as the biggest bother, you probably live in Manhattan.
Drugs? The Bronx.
Rodents? Brooklyn.
Illegal conversions? Queens.
Overdevelopment? Staten Island.
That’s what a survey of 176 neighborhood leaders revealed.
The study, by Citizens for NYC and Baruch College’s e-Town Panel, found that while all those quality-of-life issues exist citywide, they affect each borough to a different extent.
Which means that those among us who are thinking of moving can pick their poison.
Manhattan’s top problem, too much street noise, placed second as the biggest quality-of-life issue in Brooklyn; third in The Bronx; fourth in Queens and eighth in Staten Island.
Drugs and drug dealing, the gripe that topped The Bronx’s list, rated fifth in Brooklyn; ninth in Manhattan; 12th in Staten Island and 13th in Queens.
Rats and rodents, which bug Brooklynites the most, ranked fourth on Manhattan’s list; eighth in The Bronx, 11th in Staten Island and 19th in Queens
Illegal conversions, the biggest bone of contention in Queens, was ninth in The Bronx; 10th in Brooklyn, and 14th in both Manhattan and Staten Island.
Overdevelopment, Staten Island’s worst woe, placed second in Queens; fifth in Manhattan; eighth in Brooklyn and a distant 21st in The Bronx.
The community leaders surveyed were asked to rank 29 quality-of-life problems – with street noise and dangerous intersections coming out on top citywide and lack of public transportation and homeless people on the street at the bottom.
Also scoring low on the gripe list were stray dogs and cats, disruptive bars and nightclubs, and rundown buildings.
Drugs and drug dealing was the top crime on the citywide list, placing seventh among all complaints.
Vandalism and graffiti came in ninth; property crime, 13th; illegal dumping, 15th; youth violence and gangs, 16, and violent crime, 21st.
In releasing the survey, Citizens for NYC President Michael Clark noted that it’s expected to help identify “the day-to-day quality-of-life problems that New Yorkers face, so we can better target our work with [neighborhood] groups to solve local problems.”
—-
TOP GRIPES
MANHATTAN
1. Street noise
2. Air pollution
3. Traffic congestion
4. Rodents
5. Overdevelopment
BRONX
1. Drugs
2. Dangerous intersections
3. Street noise
4. Litter
5. Traffic congestion
BROOKLYN
1. Rodents
2. Street noise
3. Litter
4. Dangerous intersections
5. Drugs
QUEENS
1. Illegal conversions
2. Overdevelopment
3. Street noise
4. Vandalism
5. Dangerous intersections
STATEN ISLAND
1. Overdevelopment
2. Traffic congestion
3. Dangerous intersections
4. Potholes
5. Illegal dumping
CITY WIDE
1. Street noise
2. Dangerous intersections
3. Litter
4. Overdevelopment
5. Traffic congestion
(Source: Survey of 176 neighborhood leaders by Citizens for NYC and Baruch College)