Community Corner

Perception Vs. Reality? Pictures Say 1,000 Words About Park Slope

MIT study determines wealth and safety perception based on Google Street View.

If a new study is to be believed, Park Slope may not be the upper-crust Brooklyn neighborhood it used to be. 

How wealthy do you feel walking the streets of Prospect Heights? Because if the results of a recent study are to be believed, you're sauntering around the wealthiest-seeming neighborhood in the city.

According to a report written up in Fast Company, participants in a study of wealth perception who were shown Google Street view photos of neighborhoods in New York City and Boston thought Prospect Heights looked like the wealthiest neighborhood of all.

Park Slope ranked behind areas like Forest Hills and the Upper East Side — but also Midwood and Morningside Heights. What gives? 

The study found that the methodology for determining wealth was not exactly fool-proof. The lowest ranking neighborhood in New York was Greenpoint, rated behind even Brooklyn's East New York. Greenpoint's median income is vastly higher — and its crime rate vastly lower — than the area it came in behind. 

Researchers found that areas which seemed safer to outside observers using only a Google Maps image actually were roughly as safe as they seemed. 

The study, which began in 2010, has spawned a website where you can take a similar test yourself. 


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