Oklahoma City’s Resident Satisfaction Beats National Average

Oklahoma City residents continue to be more satisfied with their community than most Americans who live in big cities, according to a new survey.

The results of this year’s Citizen Survey show about four out of five residents think Oklahoma City is an “excellent” or “good” place to live. The top concern remains streets, which has remained the top concern for years.

Voters approved the Better Streets, Safer City program last year to improve the quality of our streets and support other investments to make Oklahoma City better. It includes more than $1.2 billion for streets, traffic control, bridges, sidewalks, parks, trails, bicycle infrastructure and more.

Resident satisfaction with City services was generally about the same in this year’s survey as it was in 2017.

Only two major City service categories tracked in the annual survey improved or worsened by more than 4% this year – a 5% improvement in satisfaction with public communication, and a 5% drop in satisfaction with the quality of the transit system.

Nearly three out of four Oklahoma City residents think the City is moving in the right direction, and satisfaction with public safety services is higher than the national average for large American cities.

“We’re proud to be making the investments Oklahoma City voters approved last year to make our community even better,” said City Manager Jim Couch. “Our staff and the City Council will be working hard to see better results in the annual survey every year.”

Chris Tatham of ETC Institute delivered the survey results during Tuesday’s Oklahoma City Council meeting. The full survey is available online.

Satisfaction with the overall quality of City services and how well the City is planning for growth is well above national averages for large cities. According to the survey, 62% of respondents are satisfied with the overall quality of City services provided, 17% above average.

Residents rate how well the City is planning growth at 20% above the national average.

Other survey results show:

Satisfaction with public safety services remains high: 88% of survey respondents are satisfied with fire service, 77% are satisfied with ambulance service and 71% are satisfied with police service. All are higher than the national average for large cities.

Most residents are satisfied with City utility services: 91% are satisfied with residential trash collection, 82% are satisfied with bulky waste removal and 64% are satisfied with water service.

For code and ordinance enforcement services, residents were most satisfied with the enforcement of neighborhood yard parking and enforcing cleanup of debris on private property.

Residents rated the maintenance of City streets as the number one priority to be addressed in the next two years. Overall satisfaction with the condition of major streets is rated significantly below the national average.

This is the 12th year ETC Institute of Olathe, Kan., has conducted the satisfaction survey. The six-page survey was given to a random sample of Oklahoma City households this summer. Of those, 1,325 residents responded.