So why does Staten Island have such a bad reputation among New Yorkers?

Oh, give me a break! I was born in "the City" (Manhattan), except for college, lived there for decades until I and my significant other needed more room for not more money. We ended up renting a house ln Staten Island.

I commuted for a long time and loved it...the ferry ride was a daily treat for me. I always had a book and I never opened it... just to sit and watch the water and the city coming up...for 25 minutes twice a day...heaven. All these many years later I still consider myself a New Yorker but I've never regretted the move.

It simply isn't true there's nothing to do. One of the first things I did was join a Choral Society which has performed often at Carnegie Hall and is considered excellent by professional standards.
The variety of excellent restaurants was perhaps sparse at the beginning but now is incredible!
The North Shore is very diverse and the restaurants prove it. There are three colleges! Museums. A zoo.

There are more parks, small medium and large, just all over. There is the Greenbelt (essentially a forest+) which runs from the top to the bottom of the Island. Hiking, nature walks, all sorts of instructions for adults and children. Wildlife including deer, very knowledgable guides...highly-regarded bird sanctuary...really much of the Island is.

Oh, did I mention? This is an island! There is therefore water all around. Many beaches. Beautiful Boardwalk newly renovated after Sandy. So you walk one way and then you turn around and walk the other and you see the Verrazano and the City. And that's just one beach, with a lovely restaurant looking out over the water.

Okay. Enough. It's a complex place really. Many different ways of approaching it. I'm glad we moved here 40 years ago.

Staten Island has serious transportation issues, both getting around the island, as well as getting to Manhattan. Driving, expect to spend a lot of time in the car just traversing the island at peak hours.

There is a lack of needed operating train lines, and disused lines are either inactive and overgrown, or filled in and have been built upon.

The single remaining train line from St. George to Tottenville does not cover the entire island or much of the more cosmopolitan areas.

There is also ongoing pollution from New Jersey industry which affects air quality on the North Shore.

The world's largest landfill was on SI, but it's been covered over and no longer smells terrible.

There's also the meme that SI is boring. But if you check out the Cultural Directory at StatenIslander.org (https://statenislander.org/sidir/museums/) you'll see it's not so boring a place. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

And, there are tons of amazing parks and almost fifteen miles of beaches. However, sometimes the water quality is not the best due to sewage runoff into the ocean after heavy storms.

And, the island has lost many open spaces over time to development.

And, over-development is rampant. Where a single home once stood, there may be twelve homes squeezed in. The island has been overdeveloped, clearly. (This trend is now spreading worldwide!)

Staten Island is a outer borough which lacks good public transportation and the amenities that the other boroughs have. Basically, there is nothing to do there. You have Victory Blvd, Hylan Blvd and Richmond Ave. That’s it. Becoming congested with heavy traffic. Those who can not afford the cost of real estate in the other boroughs settle for Staten Island. Then they realize that they made a big mistake.

use to be a landfill