Survey: NYCers more optimistic about city future
NEW YORK -- New Yorkers like the city. They really, really like it.
A survey released Thursday found that 84 percent of city residents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the city as a place to live.
The survey was conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion on behalf of the Municipal Art Society of New York.
The 2012 survey was the third one the Art Society has had done. It also found that 81 percent of those polled were optimistic or very optimistic about the future of life in the city, up from 76 percent in the 2011 survey.
But when asked about threats to the livability of the city, employment opportunities came in as the top concern, with 22 percent of respondents picking it as the biggest issue. Twenty-one percent of those polled thought safety was the biggest threat, followed by housing options and cost of goods and services both coming in with 19 percent.
Respondents thought favorably of their neighborhoods' parks and public spaces, with 61 percent rating them excellent or good.
When asked which of New York City's five boroughs was the best place to start a new business, 44 percent of those polled picked Manhattan, while 62 percent thought it was the most artistic or creative borough.
Queens, however, was narrowly voted the best value of the money, with 25 percent of respondents picking it, followed by Manhattan at 24 percent, Brooklyn at 18 percent, the Bronx at 13 percent and Staten Island at 10 percent.
The telephone survey of 1,324 city residents was conducted Aug. 28-31, 2012. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.