Grasmere

My cousins live here and I spend a lot of time here, and in general it is decent. For Staten Island, it's great. it is convenient, but it is pretty urban. By no means is this rural or even suburban, It is still city living for a discount. The area has the same problems as the rest of Staten Island, but decent overall.

Grasmere is best known for its fresh water lakes and ponds - and as such, attract natural (and imported) wildlife such as turkeys, swans, herons, turtles, possums, raccoons, and even the occasional deer. It's bordering mixed density housing, with row houses and apartments up and down Clove rd and West Fingerboard, as well as McMansions by the lake. The partition of the area is decidedly odd - Look closer on the map and you'll notice the Grasmere train station really isn't part of Grasmere and is hard to tell from Concord. The two areas are so small, it would make more sense to combine them into one town (but I suspect the house styles, and by extension, income differences keep the two distinct and separate.)
The area is good for commuters to Manhattan and Brooklyn, being close to the train and buses on Hylan blvd. It suffers from heavy traffic on Clove rd and along West Fingerboard rd, where the Staten Island Advance is located. PS 48 is well regarded, but the higher you move up in age, the worse the school rankings get. There are plenty of private schools in the area to offset any public school decline, should you wish to go that route.

Travel east along West Fingerboard rd and you'll reach the east shore and boardwalk - an easy bike ride just under 2 miles. North is the Staten Island Expressway, and west and south are the major conduits Richmond/Targee and Hylan blvd, respectively. There is a small strip mall on Clove, offering a grocery store, dry cleaning, deli and gym (and a pharmacy opening up soon.) Also on Clove are a Chinese and a wonderful Peruvian restaurant, but the majority of eating and shopping will be further south on Hylan.

Internet is serviced by Verizon Fios, Time Warner cable, as well as the dish providers. The area is relatively safe, but suffers from a lot of transitory traffic either walking to/from bus and train and from driving. This means it can get dirty from random people littering, and the occasional lazy dog walker. Parking is readily available on the street (as there's no city street cleaning,) however, there are a lot of outside commuters that take advantage of this and use the roads as their personal park n' ride on the weekdays.