City Government Gets Lackluster Grades from Lower Manhattan Residents
A new report by the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), an independent civic organization that aims to improve the municipal government’s finances and quality of services, finds that Lower Manhattan residents take a dim view of City Hall’s performance in both categories.
For the purposes of this analysis, titled “The 2023 New York City Resident Survey,” Lower Manhattan is defined as Community District 1 (CD1)—a congeries of communities comprising 1.5 square miles, bounded roughly by Canal, Baxter, and Pearl Streets, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The survey analyzed data from all 59 community districts throughout the five boroughs, quantifying responses to 70 questions, and broke down the answers for each catchment individually.
Overall, only 41.6 percent of CD1 residents pronounced themselves satisfied with life in New York City, down from 73 percent and 72 percent in prior CBC surveys, conducted in 2017 and 2008, respectively. Downtown residents are slightly happier than those in Manhattan as a whole (40 percent) and much less aggrieved than respondents citywide, only 29.8 percent of whom are satisfied. Roughly one-fifth (20.4 percent) of CD1 dwellers rated New York City services positively, which was slightly grimmer than boroughwide responses (26 percent) and those from the entire City (24 percent).
Asked about their own community, 70 percent of CD1 residents offered a thumbs up, way ahead of Manhattan overall 58 percent and the City overall (50 percent). This was part of a larger pattern, repeated in almost every Community District around New York, in which residents perceived their own neighborhood in more favorable—or at least less unfavorable—terms than they viewed the City in its entirety. But this indicator was below positive responses from Lower Manhattan residents in 2017 (88 percent) and 2008 (81 percent).
Drilling down at the community level, Lower Manhattan residents gave their home turf high marks in a handful of specific categories: the availability of subway service (70.3 percent), bus service (66.3 percent), garbage pickup (65.4 percent), public parks (72.1 percent), cultural activities (68.5 percent) and public libraries (61.8 percent).
Less glowing were the reviews for other local metrics, like neighborhood public safety (45.3 percent responded positively), pedestrian safety (43 percent), neighborhood cleanliness (41.1 percent), street repair (36 percent), and bike safety (23.7 percent).
In a surprising finding, area residents gave the equivalent of a “D” to local public education, with only 40.9 percent of respondents describing it as “excellent” or good,” and 59 percent terming it “fair” or “poor.” This is a counter-intuitive marker, given that Lower Manhattan is home to some of the highest-performing public elementary, middle, and high schools anywhere in New York City.
The question “Does the City spend your tax dollars wisely” drew a resounding “no” from Downtowners. Not a single respondent from Lower Manhattan rated the City’s performance as “excellent” in this category, while 12 and 23 percent described it as “good” or “fair,” respectively, and 65 percent graded it as “poor.”