Just half of all New Yorkers plan to stay in the city over the next five years, and anger over quality of life has skyrocketed since the pandemic — with just 30% saying they’re happy here, according to a damning poll from the The Citizens Budget Commission.
The non-profit think tank’s first such post-pandemic survey, released Tuesday, also found that only 37% of New Yorkers thought public safety in their neighborhood was excellent or good, down from 50% six years ago.
When asked if they planned to stay in the Big Apple until 2028, only 50% of those surveyed said yes, down from 58% in 2017, according to the CBC.
“People are fed up with the quality of life. There’s a general sense of lawlessness. You go into the CVS and there’s shoplifting. People’s cars get vandalized,” Queens Councilman Robert Holden told The Post.
Half of the 6,600 households polled also said they felt unsafe riding the subway during the day, a drastic reduction from the more than four out of five New Yorkers who said so in 2017.
The survey also showed steep slides in happiness with the quality of public education, government services and cleanliness in the city.
New Yorkers were also increasingly dissatisfied with traffic, bike and pedestrian safety and subway service.
White people, residents of Manhattan and those making higher incomes were more likely to report satisfaction with city life than other groups, according to the poll.
The massive decline of satisfaction with the general quality of life in New York City was buoyed by the fact that 50% of residents were happy with the quality of life in their neighborhood.
Some 43% of residents making more than $200,000 a year approved of living in their neighborhood, as did 45% of those earning more than $100,000, the survey found.
Only 30% of New Yorkers making less than $35,000 felt the same.
In neighborhoods like Manhattan’s Upper East and West Sides, Soho, TriBeCa, sections of waterfront Brooklyn and Queens and southern Staten Island, that figure soared to over 70% of people who said their neighborhood was excellent or good.
Still, those metrics were a decline from six years ago, when large swaths of all the boroughs and the entirety of Staten Island said they enjoyed living in their neighborhood.
The swelling dissatisfaction with city life came as all the rates of all major crime had increased between 2017 and 2023, according to NYPD statistics.
“The survey is a sobering, but hugely valuable assessment of what things matter the most for New Yorkers right now,” said Jonathan Bowles, Executive Director, Center for an Urban Future.
“Policymakers should take notice and grasp that there’s still a lot of work to do to make the city more livable and affordable.”
Mayor Eric Adams tried to both distance himself from the survey and put a positive spin on it during a Tuesday press conference, saying that in a city of “8.3 million people [there are] 35 million different opinions.”
“I’ve been here for two years and three months of that,” Adams said of the six-year gap in between surveys.
The Democrat added: “What I love about this report is it said how people say my priorities are in order, public safety, rats. Fortunately, the office of Mayor Eric Adams administration [is] by and large in line with New York; his priorities include public safety, housing, and clean streets, parks and public spaces.”
And Adams acknowledged that he feels the frustration in the city, too.
“People have a right to be angry over what has happened with the migrants and asylum seeker crises and how it has impacted the quality of life for migrants and asylum seekers and on everyday New Yorkers,” he said.”I know New Yorkers are feeling a certain way right now.”
Holden, a conservative Democrat who represents Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale, Elmhurst, Rego Park and parts of Ridgewood in Queens said he was not surprised by the survey’s results.
He said pedestrians are concerned about walking across the street because of motorists disregarding traffic safety rules and the proliferation of e-bikes.
“People see this with their own eyes,” he said.
Four homes were up for sale on his own block in Middle Village. Three were sold, and one of the residents “went back to Bulgaria!,” according to the lawmaker.
Holden contended that the seeds of diminished quality of life were planted before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when progressives in the state Legislature approved the controversial cashless bail law while non-violent crimes were decriminalized by prosecutors and the political class.
“There’s general disrespect for the police. We moved away from broken windows policing that brought this city back,” he said, adding that New Yorkers who can afford to leave the city “can’t wait to get out of here.”
Tom Grech, the president and CEO of Queens Chamber of Commerce, agreed with Holden saying, “In general, it’s pretty ugly out there.
“There’s a free for all mentality over there the last couple of years. There’s a little sense of things spiraling out of control. We’ve got to get back to basics,” Grech said, mentioning that the MTA loses $600 million a year from fare evasion.
He claimed dramatically curbing that figure alone would reduce the need to impose congestion pricing to enter prime Manhattan.
“We vastly underestimated the impact of the pandemic. There are out there who are not part of the recovery.”
Grech said the decay was unfortunate because in some respects Queens is booming, with job growth strong at the airports and new developments in the works, including a new soccer stadium.
“CBC’s survey reflects the loss of confidence that New Yorkers feel in the aftermath of the pandemic,” said Kathryn Wylde, CEO of the New York City Partnership.
“In New York, more than 40,000 people died, almost a million lost their jobs, crime rose, and inflation drove up the cost of living. It’s going to take some time, but a solid number of survey respondents recognize that progress is being made in addressing quality of life issues.”
Despite Adams’ appointment of a rat czar to control the city’s millions of rodents, Hizzoner’s prioritization of rat control was not a bright spot on the poll.
Only 27% of residents polled were happy with the city’s efforts to eradicate rats last year, down from 45% in 2017, when Bill de Blasio was mayor.