A Report on our November Community Survey

Our Third Survey is showing some trends over time

Last month, this publication announced that it was going to offer readers a chance to participate in it’s third community survey. This effort followed up on June’s and Spetember’s effort to gauge how the community feels things are going here in our hometown.

You can read about the last community report here:

This survey was open for two weeks, and this publication received 50 responses from folks living in the Troy (45373) Zip Code, an increase of 19% over the past survey. It may not seem like a massive number, but trust us, it's statistically significant for a community of 26,000. The margin of error for this survey is 14%, which means every percentage we're giving you has that wiggle room at a 95% confidence level - which is an industry standard for surveys like this.

Right Track and Wrong Direction

One of the questions asked in the survey was the direction people felt the nation, the state and the community were headed. For the nation, 22% believe we're on the right track, while a whopping 62% think we're headed in the wrong direction, which is a modest five point improvement over September. As for the state, 28% feel it's on the right track (a 5% decrease since September) and 44% say it's going the wrong way. And for our City of Troy, well, 30% think we're on the right track (a small 4% improvement over the last survey), while 52% feel we're going the wrong direction. For three straight surveys, the community’s sentiment about their hometown has been underwater.

Outlook On The Future

The survey also wanted to know your outlook on the future and it's a bit of a mixed bag. Some folks (2%) are extremely confident that things will get better, while 36% are somewhat confident. On the other hand, 12% aren't too sure and think things might get worse, and 8% are really not confident at all – they believe things will definitely get worse. A plurality of respondents (42%) said that there would be no change within the community in one year.

How We Feel About Our Community

But even with all the uncertainties, most of our respondents still have a positive affinity towards our community which is very positive. 52% love our community, 38% like it, and only 4% don't seem to have any emotional attachment. We do have a small group (6%) who don't quite like our hometown.

Attributes and Challenges

The survey also asked individuals to list what they believed the three biggest attributes and the three biggest challenges facing the community as a whole. Word clouds were developed to show the open-ended answers people provided.

Attribute Word Clouds

Challenges Word Clouds

What do you think?

Perhaps you were one of the 50 individuals that participated in the survey. Maybe you are surprised by the results. Let us know what you think about this survey in the comment section and if you find the Civic Capacity Newsletter helpful - please share it with those you know! Together, we can make our community even better!