Survey Says!: Citizens Rate NY City Services

The NY Times has created some wicked cool maps based on data from the NYC Feedback Citywide Customer Survey. The city collected information from approximately 25,000 willing citizens about everything from air quality (very low ratings from all community boards) to fiscal responsibility (ditto) to local crime control (extreme variations that clearly correlate with level of affluence). Amongst the questions asked were: How would you rate public libraries in your neighborhood? and How would you rate public libraries in New York City overall? Here's a screenshot of the former:


These results don't strike me as terrible, but there's a helluvah lot of room for improvement. No place more so than Community Board 16, an area that includes the Ocean Hill and Brownsville neighborhoods of Brooklyn and is served by three public library branches: Stone Avenue, Brownsville, and Saratoga. It's interesting to note that this C.B. also claimed some of the city's lowest ratings for neighborhood cultural activities, cleanliness, and police relations.