Brooklyn Ahead Overall, Queens Splitting the Columns
average livability score, Brooklyn streets vs Queens streets
BestAge livability score
Our Bestage Street livability score has Brooklyn sitting at an average of 53 as opposed to Queens' score of 47, and Queens still takes two of the three dimensions the page below shows you. In terms of cleanliness, Queens beats Brooklyn by a clear margin, 56 to 45, and edges quietness out by a couple of points. If we're going to compare Brooklyn versus Queens, the real difference is transportation and accessibility.
Queens is the largest borough by area, which is definitely going to play a part in any type of comparison. Due to the size difference between the boroughs, Queens' transit reading of 36 ties Staten Island for the lowest of the five, and its walkable-food reading is the second lowest.
The Curb Is Still the Fight in Both
For the amount of debate that goes into Brooklyn vs Queens, what might surprise you is that both boroughs suffer from the same type of 311 complaint: illegal parking. It tops the 311 log in Brooklyn and in Queens, ahead of every noise category in both boroughs (Queens' second most-filed type is blocked driveways).
Scores count 311 complaints, HPD violations, and NYPD crash records against the people who live on a street, add what that street reaches on foot, and rank it against streets of the same kind. Updated weekly.
The Shopping Strips Are Not the Bottom
Steinway Street's livability score, mid-table for a shopping strip.
Source: BestAge livability score
Steinway Street in Astoria is the clearest case on this page. A shopping strip with a few thousand people living along it sits at 53, mid-table, because complaints are counted against the residents who live there rather than against the length of the street.
The bottom of the table is the empty end of Queens. About one Queens street in eleven grades F, the largest failing population of any borough, and they are service roads and airport-edge blocks with a few dozen homes and nothing in walking distance. Those blocks look calm. They are mostly just empty.
How to Actually Choose
Both boroughs run the full length of the scale, from failing blocks to streets in the high 80s. Setting aside the single-development stubs, Brooklyn's best street is Willoughby Street in downtown, at 86, with Queens' best streets split between Hunter Street in the old Long Island City grid (which is closer to Manhattan than most of Brooklyn is) and Highland Avenue in Jamaica Estates.
A six-point borough gap is a starting point and nothing more. Compare the actual blocks you are choosing between, and read the traffic-safety column carefully if you are moving to Queens.