Hint –it’s not just about how well your city delivers its services.
When it comes to resident satisfaction, most people immediately think of how well a city delivers its services. But the truth is, your community’s quality of life goes far beyond that.
In fact, beyond essential services, elements such as affordable housing, a welcoming community culture, and easy access to local amenities like shopping and dining play an important role in determining residents’ satisfaction. These aspects influence how people feel about where they live and contribute greatly to their perception of quality of life. Unfortunately, many community satisfaction surveys focus on only these deliverables.
Let’s take a closer look at how these factors come together to create a stronger, more fulfilling community experience.
The Civic Framework: A Holistic Approach to Quality of Life
The Civic Framework is a comprehensive model that illustrates the key dimensions leading to a high quality of life in a community. A well-designed community survey should consider all of these elements, ensuring a holistic view of what drives resident satisfaction.
Core Benefits
At the heart of the Civic Framework are the “Core Benefits,” which represent what residents truly want from their community. These are the factors that residents value most—things that, if delivered well, will make them feel truly connected to their city. When these core needs are met, residents tend to feel a deep sense of satisfaction and pride in their community.
While we’ll dive deeper into the details of the Civic Framework in a downloadable resource (which you can access by clicking here), let’s highlight the most important contributors to a high quality of life.
What Truly Matters to Residents: Key Insights
Our latest benchmarking survey results reveal the key elements that influence resident satisfaction. These insights are derived from “modeled importance scores,” which are more reliable than direct survey responses. Respondents may tell us what they think we want to hear, but these modeled scores reveal the factors that matter most to them.
Key takeaways from our findings:
Core Benefits Are the Most Important to a Higher Quality of Life:
These are the factors that matter most for boosting overall satisfaction. Things like a sense of belonging, community safety, and economic opportunities are just as critical as basic services, if not more so. If your city can focus on improving these core aspects, residents will feel a stronger emotional connection to their community.
City Services Are Essential, But Not the Whole Story:
While core city services (like utilities, public safety, and transportation) are undeniably important, they don’t have the same weight in boosting overall satisfaction as some of the softer, less tangible factors. Residents expect these services to be efficient, but they won’t move the needle in terms of long-term satisfaction unless complemented by a strong sense of community and a high quality of life.
The Role of City Management: A Key Factor in Resident Satisfaction
Another important factor influencing satisfaction is the community’s trust in its city management. The perception of how well the city is being managed can deeply impact on residents’ sense of security and optimism about the future.
Though we’ll explore this in more depth in a future Community Insights Newsletter, it’s clear that how residents perceive their local government, its responsiveness, and its transparency plays a significant role in how they feel about their city as a whole. A well-managed community fosters a greater sense of stability and trust, which are key to long-term resident satisfaction.
Beyond Service Delivery
While service delivery is a cornerstone of any community, the full picture of resident satisfaction is much broader. The combination of brand perceptions, city service delivery, city management, and core benefits all intertwine to create a thriving environment where people feel truly at home.
By broadening your community surveys to include these elements, you can gain a deeper understanding of what truly matters to your residents and where improvements should be made. When cities focus not just on delivering services but also on fostering a welcoming, dynamic environment, residents are more likely to feel engaged, satisfied, and loyal to their community.
