Katy Golvala

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When the city asked New Yorkers about their quality of life, Bushwick residents didn’t holding anything back.

Only 41 percent of Bushwick residents rated the neighborhood as a “good” or “excellent” place to live, compared with an average of 60 percent of residents in neighborhoods across Brooklyn and NYC overall.

This is according to results from the NYC Resident Feedback Survey, which was conducted last year by the Citizens Budget Commission to measure satisfaction with city services and overall quality of life across the neighborhoods in NYC.  

So, why are Bushwick residents pissed off?

It’s no secret that the city needs to do a better job of bringing quality services to Bushwick, and that showed in the results of this survey. Only 33 percent of Bushwick residents rate the quality of NYC government services as “excellent” or “good,” compared with 44 percent of residents in Brooklyn and NYC overall.

The survey asked residents about their satisfaction across 45 categories and included questions about quality of life (i.e. feeling safe on the subway, in parks, and walking alone) and quality of city services (i.e. satisfaction with emergency medical services, household garbage pick-up, and pre-k programs).

Bushwick residents reported the lowest satisfaction ratings of any community district in Brooklyn across 11 out of the 45 areas, including bike safety, street cleanliness, rat control, control of street noise, services for at-risk children, services for homeless people, and snow removal.

On the positive side, Bushwick residents feel most satisfied with the safety of parks, the safety of subways, and, randomly enough, with the job that the city has done to protect residents from a terrorist attack.

When comparing across neighborhoods in Brooklyn, the community district reporting the lowest satisfaction levels was Brownsville, while community district 6, which includes Gowanus and Park Slope, reported the highest levels of satisfaction.

So, that’s your neighborhood fact of the week, Bushwick. Have a question about the neighborhood that you want us to try and answer using data? Leave a comment below!

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Cover image courtesy of Ben White