Crime top concern for Calgarians: city survey

Crime is the most important issue for Calgarians in the city's annual citizen satisfaction survey, surpassing infrastructure concerns for the first time in eight years.

Forty-two per cent of 1,000 randomly selected Calgarians said that crime, safety and policing topped their list of concerns in the city's 2008 phone survey, which was released on Friday.

Infrastructure, including traffic and roads, had been the top civic concern since 2000 until last year, when the speed of Calgary's growth was listed as the No. 1 issue.

The phone survey was conducted Sept. 2-10 after a summer of high-profile daytime shootings and gang-related violence in the city.

The next most frequent mentions of top concerns after crime were:

• Infrastructure.
• Transit.
• Health care and hospitals.
• Education.
• Homelessness and affordable housing.

The City of Calgary has used the annual citizen satisfaction survey since 1997 as a guide for its services and business plan, but pointed out on Friday that it does not manage health care and education.

Majority rate quality of life as good

Sixty-nine per cent of those surveyed rated the overall quality of life in Calgary as good.

But 58 per cent also described their quality of life has having declined in the past three years due to overpopulation, speed of growth and increased crime.

The survey, conducted by research firm Ipsos Reid, included questions about quality of life, communication needs, safety, levels of taxation and the quality of civic services.

Eighty-eight per cent said the city's overall performance was very good or good, while those same ratings were given by 89 per cent to the overall quality of services provided by the city.