95% of Naperville residents give city a positive quality of life rating, find little to criticize, survey shows
From resident satisfaction to city performance, Naperville is posting high marks all around, a community survey found.
The glowing report, which shows 95% of residents give the city’s overall quality of life a positive rating, was presented to the Naperville City Council in a workshop meeting Monday.
Results were so assuring that officials were left trying to find areas for improvement.
“If you’re looking (for) … the place where we’re screwing up and dropping the ball? Frankly, when I went through the data, I could not find (any),” Naperville City Manager Doug Krieger told council members.
Product research company Polco conducted this year’s survey, which went out to residents over the summer in two rounds. In early July, postcards were mailed to 3,000 randomly selected and geographically dispersed households around the city. Those households had initial access to the survey. During the last two weeks of data collection in August, the survey was opened online to all residents.
While there were 612 surveys completed by postcard recipients and another 675 submitted during the open collection, the results and conclusions presented to the council primarily focused on Polco’s mailed, statistically significant random sampling.
Residents were polled on a total of 123 items. A new survey tool for Naperville used a standardized method developed by Polco through which the city can be compared to other municipalities.
Polco has more than 600 communities in its National Community Survey database, representing the opinions of more than 50 million residents around the country. With that information, the company can establish benchmarks to help communities contextualize their individual performances as higher, similar or lower than national averages.
Of the 123 items Polco surveyed in Naperville, 103 received ratings higher than national benchmarks, 20 received similar ratings and none fell below the national average. Comparisons are drawn on a margin of 10, higher ratings being at least 10 points above benchmarks and lower ratings at least 10 lower.
All aspects of Polco’s survey related to the overall quality of life in Naperville rated consistently higher, or even much higher — 20 points above — than the national averages. Nearly all responders, 97%, rated Naperville as an excellent or good place to live. Likewise, 96% of participants said they’d recommend living in Naperville to someone who asks.
Public safety also fared particularly well. Some 96% of respondents rated the overall feeling of safety in Naperville as excellent or good, with 95% saying they felt safe from violent crime in the city and 91% from property crime.
On measures of its economy, the city received much higher satisfaction compared to benchmarks on seven out of 11 items surveyed. That includes a 91% positive rating on Naperville as a place to work, a 95% positive rating on the city’s quality of business and service establishments, and a 95% rating on Naperville’s overall economic health.
Other survey highlights include 94% satisfaction with the opportunities for education, culture and arts in Naperville, 96% satisfaction with the city’s overall appearance and 94% with quality of natural environment.
Polco broached a handful of community-specific questions with residents, submitted by city staff, which put the focus on the environment and parking. Responses showed residents think sustainability issues warrant attention by the city and downtown parking polled at a 54% satisfaction rate.
For the most part, however, Polco’s questions drew broad strokes for opinions in Naperville — broader than surveys in years past,e which have been done every few years since 2006. Staff Monday said Polco’s assessment evaluated all of the facets of community livability as opposed to just looking in-depth at city services, which was the target of previous survey tools.
Still, to gauge how opinions have changed since the city started surveying residents some 17 years ago, staff said they are working on developing trend data across similar questions asked over time.
As for where to go next, staff said they will work on maintaining the city’s high performance while looking at areas that, while measuring up with national benchmarks per Polco, could still improve.
“Naperville is a community with very high expectations,” Krieger said after Monday’s meeting. “Being average here in Naperville, we look at that as a growth area because we’re not a community who’s used to being average. And if the data shows that we’re there, that’s an area that we would focus on more.”
Of the items rated similar to Polco benchmarks in Naperville, most related to the city’s mobility, transportation system and level of public participation.
To what extent the city will devote resources to those areas, however, will also depend on how important they are to residents, Krieger said. Apart from satisfaction, Polco’s survey measured how essential topics were to residents. The economy and safety topped the list.
“I think the other piece you really need to look at is the importance our community places on items and what gains you can make there,” Krieger said. “Because if we can make gains around something that our community doesn’t really think is important, that’s less critical than maintaining the excellent scores in areas that our community thinks are important.”
Complete survey results are available to view at public.tableau.com/app/profile/polco.nrc/viz/TheNCSReport-NapervilleIL2023/About.
