Calgary gets high marks for quality of life in Citizen Satisfaction Survey
Citizens want more attention paid to infrastructure, transit and snow removal
Local pride is running strong in Calgary.
The City of Calgary released the results of the annual Citizen Satisfaction Survey on Thursday and it showed that nine out of 10 people in the city are proud to be Calgarian.
“People are happy to live here … they're proud to be Calgarians,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “They believe the city is on the right track and continues to be on the right track.”
The annual survey has been conducted by the by the city since 1997. It was designed to help city officials better understand and respond to Calgarian’s changing needs and expectations.
Market research company Ipsos-Reid spoke to a random sample of 2,450 Calgary citizens in the five-week phone survey between Aug. 27 and Oct. 1.
Some highlights include:
- 91 per cent are proud to be Calgarian (92 per cent in 2013 compared to 89 per cent in 2012)
- 86 per cent are proud to live in their neighbourhood (88 per cent in 2013 compared to 85 per cent in 2012);
- 89 per cent of Calgarians believe that Calgary is on the right track to being a better city 10 years from now (90 per cent in 2013 compared to 89 per cent in 2012).
Two-thirds of those surveyed said they are getting good value for their tax dollar and may be willing to pay more, which is positive news for council who are primed to start debating the city's four-year budget plan that calls for a 4.7 per cent hike on property taxes each year.
City services can improve, say residents
"This is a good report card. It's a very good report card. It doesn't mean that we don't have things we need to improve but it certainly is a good place for us," said Nenshi.
Despite the high marks on quality of life in Calgary, the survey also showed a decrease in the overall satisfaction with the level and quality of city services.
There were increases in overall satisfaction in the areas of land use planning, roads and infrastructure, pathways, bylaw services, animal control and community services; however, overall satisfaction with the level and quality of city services and programs declined by five percentage points from the previous year to 79 per cent.
The survey indicated that a solid majority want more attention paid to infrastructure, transit and snow removal.
"If we're finding savings in this budget, then the first place I'm looking where to put those is in Calgary Transit followed quickly by traffic flow management," said Nenshi.
On mobile? See the entire Citizen Satisfaction Survey here.