Durham Reporter

 City of Durham issued the following announcement on March 1.

Residents Rank Police Protection, Maintenance of City Streets, and Affordable Housing as Top Three Major Services to Receive Most Emphasis Over the Next Two Years

The results are in from the City of Durham’s an annual satisfaction survey and show that residents have a positive perception of the Bull City as an excellent or good place to live and work.

What You Need to Know

82% feel Durham is an excellent or good place to live; 78% feel Durham is an excellent or good place to work.

Durham rates 9% above the national average in the overall quality of City-provided services; 22% above the national average in customer service from City employees.

Residents rank top three “very high” priorities: police protection, maintenance of city streets, and affordable housing.

The results from the 2022 Resident Satisfaction Survey show that 82% of residents feel Durham is an excellent or good place to live, 78% feel that Durham is an excellent or good place to work, and 76% are satisfied with the overall quality of life in their neighborhood. 

The survey results also show that Durham rates 9% above the national average in the overall quality of City-provided services, and 22% above the national average in customer service from City employees.

According to City Manager Wanda Page, this annual survey objectively assesses resident satisfaction with the delivery of major City services to help determine priorities for the community, measure trends from previous surveys, and compare the City’s performance with other communities regionally and nationally.

“I’m so proud of our staff for their hard work and dedication to our community, and this survey shows that our residents recognized and appreciated what their local government employees do every day for our city,” Page said. “This year’s survey also gave us important data as to where our residents believe we should focus our efforts over the next two years. The overall results provide a picture of, not only resident satisfaction, but also how we should view community-wide priorities since this data is used by the City Council and City administration to help direct day-to-day decisions as well as overall long-term planning and funding allocations.”

Residents ranked their top three “very high” priorities for the major services they believe should receive the most emphasis from City leaders over the next two years as the quality of police protection, maintenance of city streets, and affordable housing. The quality of pedestrian facilities and the public transit system were ranked as “high” priorities. The quality of bicycle facilities and ease of travel within Durham were ranked as “medium” priorities.

City-provided services with the highest levels of satisfaction, which combines very satisfied and satisfied responses, include:

Fire and life safety programming: 74%

Response time for fire services: 72%

Water and sewer utilities: 70%

Parks and recreation programs: 66%

Notable increases in satisfaction since the 2021 survey include:

Ease of travel by GoDurham

Yard waste collection services

Condition of public art

Greenways and trails

Image of Durham

Cultural programming

Notable decreases in satisfaction since the 2021 survey include:

Management of development and growth

Effectiveness of communication with the public

Enforcement of traffic safety laws

Durham as a place to start a business

Condition of parking

Quality of pedestrian facilities (sidewalks)

The ETC Institute, which conducted the resident satisfaction survey in December 2022 and January 2023, used a randomly selected sample of 673 households whose demographics reflect the population inside the city limits. The survey has a 95% level of confidence with a margin of error of +/- 3.8%.

The 2022 City results, shared earlier today with the Durham City Council during their annual budget retreat, is the thirteenth City of Durham resident satisfaction survey distributed over the past 16 years, and the eighth combined survey with Durham County Government and Durham Public Schools. The full results of the City’s portion of the survey are now available on the City’s website.

Original source can be found here