Prospect Heights Voted "Richest Looking" Amongst Nerds at MIT

 

Even though Money magazine voted us one of the best neighborhoods to live in, we're not the 'hood showing the most bling. That honor has been bestowed upon our neighboring neighborhood, Prospect Heights.

According to the New York Post, a bunch of researchers at MIT Media Lab cobbled together thousands (that's right, thousands) of non-New Yorkers and showed them Google Street views of 50 NY neighborhoods. They were asked to note which ones looked the wealthiest, the safest and the most dangerous. The survey was completed using data entered online over the course of two years. 

The results:

Richest Looking:

1. Prospect Heights
2. Midtown East 
3. Upper East Side

Poorest Looking:

1. Greenpoint
2. East New York
3. Canarsie

Safest Looking:

1. Prospect Heights 
2. Midtown East (I'm sensing a pattern)
3. Forest Hills (D'oh)

Most Dangerous Looking:

1. Greenpoint
2. East New York (I'm sensing a pattern again)
3. Brighton Beach (Duped again)

Claire Ramos, a yoga instructor and resident of PH told the Post: “'There’s so many trees and flower gardens everywhere. I think it looks like a very expensive neighborhood.'”

But as NY hoods go, it ain't. The average median household income for a family is Prospect Heights is $83,299 as compared to the Upper East Side's $118,380. And the average value of a home is a mere $735,000. Or as Ramos went onto say: “'If I wasn’t from here . . . I would think it was an impossible place to live unless you were extremely wealthy. Thank goodness it’s not that expensive!'”

Other residents say not all of Prospect Heights is all Life Styles of the Rich and Famous. Cue Google image street view image of 314 Underhill:

Right around the corner from the Richard Meier building, this place has been unfinished for years because the guy who bought it started renovations, couldn't finish and now refuses to sell and according to residents in the immediate area, the place is a dump. 

But in the end researchers said the goal of the study was to gauge perceived neighborhood safety to actual statistical neighborhood safety. The Post went on to declare that the study, "found that people are generally right about their snap judgments about rich and poor areas."

I'm glad MIT is spending money funding such groundbreaking studies.