Queens Residents Lead the City in Optimism, Poll Finds

Illustration by The New York Times

Is Queens looking at the world through rose-colored glasses? A new survey found that almost a quarter of Queens residents were “very optimistic” about “the future of life in New York City,” up from 14 percent last year.

The survey was conducted for the Municipal Art Society of New York, which has looked at livability in the city annually for the last three years. Some things have not changed: The survey once again found that New Yorkers are happy with the city as a whole and with their particular neighborhoods. Eighty-four percent said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with life in the city, the same percentage as in 2010 and 2011. This year, 15 percent said they were “not very satisfied” or “not satisfied at all.”

Citywide, satisfaction with neighborhoods was also 84 percent, the same as last year and the year before. But some places are happier than others. Staten Islanders seemed to be happiest with their neighborhoods: 91 percent said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied,” while the comparable figures were 85 percent for Manhattan and Brooklyn, 84 percent for Queens and 77 percent for the Bronx. (The boroughs ranked in the same order last year, though the percentages  were slightly different. And in 2010, Manhattan led the list, with 91 percent answering “satisfied” or “very satisfied.” Staten Island was second that year, with 90 percent.)

New Yorkers, no matter how much they may complain about everyday life, are apparently more optimistic than they were a year ago. The survey found that 81 percent answered “optimistic” or “very optimistic” to a ques tion about the future of life in the city, up from 75 percent last year.

In the borough-by-borough breakdown on that question, Queens led the city again this year with 79 percent, the same as in 2011. But there was a striking difference: This year, 24 percent said they were “very optimistic,” up from 14 percent last year. The percentage that was merely “optimistic” dropped correspondingly, to 55 percent from 65 percent.

This year, Manhattan (78 percent), Brooklyn (77 percent) and the Bronx (76 percent) were close behind Queens on the optimism question, with Staten Island lagging (69 percent). Last year, the Bronx was No. 2 with 78 percent, while Brooklyn and Manhattan were tied for third place with 77 percent. Staten Island was last with 65 percent.

So why do people in Queens like it so much? “It comes up high on value, it comes up high on being family-friendly,” said Vin Cipolla, the president of the Municipal Art Society. “Maybe the combinat ion of a more affordable place to live in New York and a place that is considered to be family-oriented contributes to that.”

The Queens borough president, Helen M. Marshall, offered much the same explanation. “It's because we love our homes and our neighborhoods,” she said through a spokesman.

But enough with the smiles. What about New Yorkers' fears? Another question asked about “threats to living happily in the city.” The top four concerns were employment opportunities (mentioned by 22 percent), safety (21 percent), housing (19 percent) and costs of goods and services (19 percent).

Staten Island was the most concerned about safety (mentioned by 25 percent of the respondents from that borough), while Manhattan was the least worried about it (mentioned by 15 percent of Manhattanites in the survey). But the breakdown on jobs was evenly distributed across the city. “‘Employment opportunities' reflect that everybody's worried about their job, fo llowed by other indicators of livability, which in other times might be higher than unemployment,” Mr. Cipolla said.

The survey was conducted by the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which questioned 1,324 adults in New York City by telephone between Aug. 28 and Aug. 31. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Research Livability Survey Major Findings 2012 1 (PDF)

Research Livability Survey Major Findings 2012 1 (Text)