Slickly produced videos falsely portraying the city and NYCHA housing developments as being over-run with drugs, crime and violence are turning up online - undercutting New York's image across the nation and the world. NY1 Criminal Justice Reporter Dean Meminger has this exclusive story.

A shocking new video online called the 10 most dangerous housing projects in the Bronx portrays the developments and neighborhoods across the borough as crime-infested war zones.  

When NY1 showed them the video, residents at the Pelham Parkway Houses voiced shock and outrage their neighborhood is being portrayed this way. 

"That's fake news," said one resident.

A website called United Gangs posted the video and two others that wildly distort conditions in Queens and Brooklyn in the same way. 

Together, the three videos have been viewed nearly a half million times in the last two months on YouTube alone.  

NY1 also showed them to the NYPD Chief of Housing, James Secreto. 

"We have come a long  way, this is probably one of our best years ever. So it is kind of ironic that we are having this video now," Secreto said.

It is not clear who is behind the United Gangs site or their motive.

But the narrator in the videos mispronounces city neighborhoods like Pelham and Bruckner known to most New Yorkers. The narrator also and uses odd language -- for example, calling NYCHA apartments "lower-income lodgings."

"Some of the videos in the beginnings of that, that I just watched were not even in this area," said one resident.

Chief Secreto says the portrait of a city out-of-control does not reflect the huge reductions in crime that have occurred, including in public housing. This year, the city is expected to have less than 300 murders for the first time since the 1950s.   

"The numbers speak for themselves. ... We've attacked the violence. We've singled out some of these crews and gangs, our strategy is working," Secreto said.

Some NYCHA residents approached by NY1 said there are serious problems at the Pelham Parkway Houses. But others say they believe it is a good place to live.

"That's ridiculous this is one of the best projects," said one resident.

The website did not respond to several requests for a comment.