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Where you call home in Brooklyn could add—or shave off—years from your life. A new report from Borough Hall maps out life expectancy across the borough and the results are as uneven as the BQE at rush hour.
On average, Brooklynites clock in at about 81 years, but the spread between neighborhoods is staggering. At the bottom of the chart are Brownsville, East New York, Coney Island, Bed-Stuy, South Williamsburg and Red Hook, where life expectancy dips to around 75 years—nearly a decade below the borough average. By contrast, neighborhoods with higher access to healthcare, safer streets, and stronger community resources—think Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Downtown Brooklyn—tend to see residents living well into their late 80s. That’s a 20-year swing, depending on which subway stop you call yours.
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So, what’s behind the gap? It’s less about artisanal coffee and more about access. The plan highlights four main drivers: healthcare availability, individual habits (diet and drug use), socioeconomic factors (poverty, racial disparities) and the built environment (parks, food access, housing). To put it simply, where you live can dictate whether you spend your golden years power-walking Prospect Park or stuck in the waiting room at Kings County.
The report doesn’t pull punches: It calls the disparities “tragic and unacceptable” and points out that life expectancy can vary more than 20 years from block to block. “What neighborhood you call home shouldn’t influence the opportunities you have access to, your safety or your health,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
For residents in long-lived neighborhoods like Borough Park and Park Slope, the edge often comes from better access to healthcare, safer streets and leafy green buffers against stress. For communities on the shorter end of the spectrum, chronic issues like food insecurity, higher asthma and diabetes rates and lack of primary care providers drag down outcomes.
If anything, the map is a wake-up call that Brooklyn’s health isn’t just about gyms and juice bars—it’s about zoning, investment and whether city planning delivers equity. Until then, your zip code might be the biggest predictor of how many birthday candles you’ll be blowing out.