Few Surprises in Times Unemployment Map (Though Coney Beats Carroll Gardens)

By Roy Edroso Tue., Dec. 29 2009 at 11:40 AM

Categories: Citystate, Featured, The Money Trail, The New Depression

We are grateful for the Times unemployment map, which shows what New York neighborhoods are doing best and worst in these parlous economic times, though most of its findings come as no shock.

The big loser is unsurprisingly East New York (also murder rate increase leader) with 3rd-quarter unemployment of a breathtaking 19.2 percent.

The Bronx, contrary to popular song, is down, too: its 13-percent-plus joblessness is the highest among boroughs, though things are slightly better up north, around Riverdale, University Heights, and other such toney sections.

Queens suffers less as you get farther north, too -- but not too far: while things are relatively hopping in Bayside, Fresh Meadows, and Kew Gardens (6.3 percent), they downgrade slightly around Flushing, College Point, and Whitestone.

The Upper East Side is best-off at 5.1 percent, or about half the city's average unemployment. (Stay strong, little boutiques!) Things get worse up in Harlem, and for black and Hispanic citizens across the city.

Predictably, realtor-friendly districts in north (Williamsburg) an southwest (Sunset Park) Brooklyn are doing better than Crown Heights and Brownsville. It's a small surprise that Coney Island and Canarsie are more in the middle, at 9 percent -- lower than Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens! Maybe formerly productive citizens in the latter districts have taken to living off rents.

Unofficial unemployment, of course, is probably much higher all around.

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