Austinites are feeling much better about Austin than they did two years ago — but not so much better that traffic, homelessness, police presence and housing affordability don't irk them.
That is the gist of the city’s latest community satisfaction survey, a biennial assessment of how residents perceive the quality of municipal services and the city as a whole. The results, released Friday, show the city's overall marks have improved notably since the last survey in 2023 with satisfaction improving in 105 of 115 "comparable areas."
The largest improvement areas were in electric service reliability (up 16%), overall quality of life (up 15%), Police Department response times (up 14%) and effective emergency response (also up 14%).
Still, satisfaction with police timeliness and emergency response effectiveness remained notably lower than the other categories, at 41% and 51%, respectively. The story is similar for satisfaction with the city's homelessness response, which climbed to 22% from 13% two years ago.
The six areas where satisfaction decreased were bulk pick-up services (down 5%), timing of traffic signals (down 2%), overall quality of city libraries (down 1%), trust in the Austin Fire Department (also down 1%) and predictable travel times (also down 1%).
Still, overall satisfaction remained high for the Fire Department (89%) and relatively high for bulk pick-up (67%) and library quality (78%.) Traffic signal timing (36%) and predictable travel times (37%) were the clear outliers and aligned with generally low scores across transportation-related categories.
Conducted last fall, the seven-page survey drew responses from 2,080 households — slightly above the city’s target of at least 2,000 responses — and carried a margin of error of plus or minus 2.15 percentage points. Results were weighted by race, ethnicity, age, gender and income to better reflect the city’s population. Respondents included homeowners and renters, newer and longtime residents, people across age groups and household incomes and residents from all 10 City Council districts.
Sixty-seven percent of respondents said they were satisfied with Austin's overall quality of life, up from 52% in 2023. A similar percentage of respondents rated Austin positively as a place to live and work, both of which saw improvements from two years ago.
Retirees and parents seem to feel differently, according to the survey.
Austin rated poorly as a place to retire, with just 37% giving it positive marks, though that was up from 28% in 2023. And 51% rated Austin positively as a place to raise children, a bump from 42% two years earlier.
The report’s most favorable ratings went to the kind of services residents tend to notice only when they fail. For example, residential garbage collection received an 84% satisfaction rating while residential recycling received 79%. In addition, Austin 3-1-1 received 73%, city facilities received 71% and city libraries received 68%. Parks, trails and library services also remained among the city’s stronger performers.
Public safety results were split. Residents continued to express strong trust in Austin Fire and EMS and most respondents also said they feel safe at home, at work and in their neighborhoods during the day. But the numbers dropped sharply when the questions moved to police visibility and nighttime safety:
- Just 24% of respondents said they feel safe walking alone downtown at night.
- 31% said they feel safe traveling with other drivers on the road.
- About 42% were satisfied with police visibility in neighborhoods and in commercial and retail areas.
Respondents identified three “very high priority” major-service areas for improvement: homelessness response, traffic flow on major city streets and the overall quality of police services. That is largely consistent with the 2023 survey, when residents also put homelessness, police services and major street traffic near the top of the city’s problem list.
Residents can view the full report online or see results on the city's dashboard.