Survey portrays happy citizenry
Residents polled over satisfaction with Calgary
We love you, Calgary, we really love you — at least that’s the conclusion of the latest citizen satisfaction survey.
The annual municipal telephone poll results released Tuesday show traffic, roads, infrastructure and public transit remain top concerns for taxpayers.
But overall, more Calgarians are saying they are happy with their city and how it’s being run.
Taxes and budget concerns fell to the bottom of the list, much as they did in years previous.
“Things are going very well,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “Unsurprisingly, people are very happy to be in Calgary, they’re happy with the services their municipal government provides and very optimistic about the future.”
The survey shows 95 per cent of Calgarians give the city a positive rating for overall performance, up three points from last year. In 2009, that number was 84.
“The numbers are fantastic. They’ve gone up nearly across the board over the last number of years,” Nenshi said.
The survey, conducted by Ipsos Reid, polled 1,000 residents from all quadrants of the city and various demographics.
According to results, 88 per cent of residents polled said quality of life is good.
“That’s up a significant five percentage points over 2011,” said Jamie Duncan, Ipsos Reid spokesman. “It’s actually higher than what we see in other Canadian municipalities.”
The survey findings also show 83 per cent believe the quality of service provided by the city is consistently high, 89 per cent say they’re proud to be Calgarian, and 74 per cent considered the city to be moving in the right direction to ensure a high quality of life for future generations.
“It’s no secret that Calgarians love this city and love living here,” Nenshi said.
The survey is considered as a report card for city employees.
“This is a balanced report card,” Duncan said.
That’s being credited for improvement in transit, and snow removal among other services. Nenshi called the citizens the experts, and that council uses the barometer of citizen opinion for planning and improvement.
“We use this stuff in our decision making pretty much every day,” he said. “It helps us understand how we’re doing, what we need to be doing better on and what people’s priorities are.”
The telephone survey was conducted with a randomly selected sample of 1,000 Calgarians aged 18 years and older between Aug. 22 and Sept. 6. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
This year marks the fourth consecutive year of a significant decline in the percentage of citizens who feel the quality of life has “worsened” — from 58 per cent in 2008, to 47 per cent in 2009, to 41 per cent in 2010, to 26 per cent in 2011, to 18 per cent in 2012.
The complete survey results are available on the City of Calgary website.