Mayor Bill de Blasio at the Talking Transition talks to a man about ‘stop-and-frisk’ last fall.
Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Organizers behind the pop-up tent in Downtown Manhattan that became a civic and political hub after Mayor Bill de Blasio’s win last fall released the results of their citywide survey on Monday.
While community leaders and newly elected politicians gathered under the white tent at the corner of Canal and Varick streets, the Talking Transition engagement project — funded by a coalition of philanthropic groups including George Soros’ Open Society Foundations — sent out more than 100 canvassers across the five boroughs to take the city’s pulse ahead of the new administration.
Despite demographic differences between neighborhoods, Talking Transition project director Danny Fuchs presented the results of the survey as proof of the city uniting behind a single issue, and one that the de Blasio administration already committed to addressing.
“New Yorkers cannot afford the housing in their neighborhoods, and the problem is getting worse,” Fuchs wrote.
The negative reaction to the city’s living affordability struck was common to every neighborhood. According to the survey, 69 percent of respondents think housing in their neighborhoods is getting worse, while 14 percent believe it’s improving.
The results were released shortly before de Blasio presented his inaugural State of the City address, during which he again committed to reinvigorating the city’s affordable housing program.
The survey also measured New Yorkers’ feelings on community relations with police, with more than 60 percent grading their neighborhoods as good or OK — the highest concentrations being in most of Manhattan, Queens, southern Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.
However, 38 percent of respondents had less than positive outlooks about their neighborhoods, especially residents in traditionally black and Latino areas including eastern Brooklyn, eastern Queens and nearly all of the Bronx.
The survey was based on answers from some 52,700 residents from across the five boroughs who provided valid responses to the survey.
Most of the New Yorkers participating in the survey claimed Brooklyn and Queens as their home boroughs, with 55 percent of total respondents admitting that they didn’t actually vote in the election that ushered in the de Blasio administration.
Follow Chester Jesus Soria on Twitter @chestersoria
