“The 2023 Dayton survey presents a picture of improvement in overall resident satisfaction and confidence in the direction Dayton is moving,” said Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein.
National polls show general public satisfaction with the way things are going is low, with many Americans feeling glum about the state of the nation. Local opinions on some quality-of-life measures may partly reflect national malaise and dissatisfaction.
Survey says
About 63% of residents who were surveyed last fall said they were satisfied or very satisfied with Dayton as a place to live, according to the citywide survey, which was mailed out to 13,000 randomly selected households. The survey was completed by more than 1,300 residents.
Satisfaction in this area was at a six-year high. Back in 2018, less than half of residents said they were content with the Gem City as a place to live.
Since then this measure has seen improvement every year, and dissatisfaction levels with Dayton as a place to live also continues to fall, declining from nearly 26% in 2019 to about 15% last year.
“This is a really good thing,” said Jeanette Ghand, senior management analyst with the city.
Satisfaction and dissatisfaction levels of residents vary, depending where they live in the city, Ghand said.
Downtown residents had the highest satisfaction level with the city as a place to live (74%), while only about 58% of residents who live in the West Dayton land-use council area said the same thing.
Dayton direction
Last year, 41.5% of Daytonians said they think the city is headed in the right direction — which is lowest level of optimism about the city’s future in at least six years.
Back in 2021, more than half of residents said Dayton was on the right path (53%). That fell to 45% in 2022.
Interestingly though, the share of residents who say the city is going in the wrong direction also has declined, for four straight years.
This may sound contradictory. But the answer is, the share of respondents who say they don’t know or aren’t sure about how they feel about Dayton’s direction has risen to 36%.
Residents who have lived in Dayton 10 years or less are significantly more likely to have a positive view of the path the city is on than longer-term residents.
“It stands to reason that folks that are wanting to move here or who moved here recently are finding value,” said Robert Heacock, senior project manager with ETC Institute, which conducted the survey. “The question is, What are they finding value in and how do we make that spread to everyone else who is already here?”
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Credit: JIM NOELKER
Heacock said presumably most people who have moved to Dayton had a choice about where they wanted to live and they chose to come here.
Survey results once again showed that younger residents are more bullish on Dayton’s future than older community members.
Other responses
About 54% of Dayton residents said they are satisfied or very satisfied with their neighborhoods, which was down from 57.5% in 2022.
This was a small decrease, and neighborhood satisfaction levels are still fairly high and remain significantly above pre-pandemic years, said Ghand.
Ghand said year-to-year fluctuations in the survey results aren’t nearly as important as long-term trends and changes in residents’ views.
The share of residents who said they were dissatisfied with their neighborhoods basically stayed the same last year, after dropping in 2022 and 2021.
About 53% of Dayton residents said they were satisfied with the quality of life in the city, while 18.5% said they were dissatisfied. These numbers were basically unchanged from 2022.
Heacock said nearly all of his company’s clients across the nation have seen some deterioration in the satisfaction of their residents who have been surveyed in the last year and a half.
Nationwide surveys have found that the national mood continues to be quite gloomy.
Less than one in five Americans say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, according to Gallup. A Gallup poll also found that for only the third time in more than 20 years less than half of Americans feel very satisfied with the way things are going in their personal lives.
Dayton Mayor Jeffrey Mims Jr. said his overall takeaway from the citywide survey is that Dayton is moving in the right direction.
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