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Despite gloomy headlines, New Yorkers appear happy with the City’s performance.

This according to a survey released by Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum at a press conference held at Forest Hills’ Public Library on Wednesday.

Overall results showed general satisfaction with the quality of the City’s various services. But New Yorkers listed housing, education, mass transit, crime and cost of living as their top-five concerns.

Within Queens, initial analysis showed a correlation between concerns and median income and geographic location of a given Community Board’s constituents.

Lower income neighborhoods like CB 14’s Rockaways showed a particular concern for crime.

More affluent areas like CB 11’s Bayside and Douglaston felt education and taxes were the most important issues.

For areas needing travel options, like CB 8’s Fresh Meadows and Kew Gardens Hills, mass transit was believed to be the biggest issue facing the City.

But two groups are adored through the entire borough. The Fire Department and emergency medical services were among the five highest-rated services in every community.

“With the economy causing tax revenues to fall, it’s more important than ever for City agencies to be effective, efficient, and responsive,” Bloomberg said. “To do that, we need to obtain as much accurate information as possible to make smart decisions about where to invest our limited resources.”

The NYC Feedback Citywide Customer Survey essentially did a public relations-style assessment of City responsibilities ranging from public schools to safety and crime. It was conducted independently by the National Research Center and was paid for by the Fund for the City of New York. Of the 136,642 households contacted, about 18 percent responded, which the mayor contends is a higher-than-expected rate.

Human services, cultural amenities, schools and public safety were rated “Fair” or better by at least 85 percent of respondents.

Concern remained in the area of social support services, such as preventing homelessness and public housing. But the survey may not be wholly indicative of people’s experience.

“We’ve found that the more familiar people are with City services, the more likely they are to have a favorable view of them,” Bloomberg said.

The full results of the survey are available online at www.nyc.gov.

Gotbaum said the next step would be focus groups targeting specific concerns across the City.

“The survey shows us what are people’s concerns,” Gotbaum said. “The next step is to find out why.”

All of this, after all, is a matter of perception. Bloomberg offered crime as an example.

“It’s not only our job to make the streets safe,” Bloomberg said. “It’s to make people confident that the streets are safe.”