Perception Vs. Reality? Pictures Say 1000 Words About Prospect Heights

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.

It beat out famously rich zip codes like the Upper East and Upper West sides, along with Forest Hills in Queens and intra-borough rival Park Slope. 

Researchers also 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 using Google Maps as a 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.