Perception Vs. Reality? Pictures Say 1,000 Words About Forest Hills

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

According to a report written up in Fast Company, participants in a study of wealth and safety perception who were shown Google Street view photos of neighborhoods in New York City and Boston. The results? Respondents thought Prospect Heights looked like the wealthiest neighborhood of all, with Forest Hills coming in fifth. 

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. 

The study also 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.