Living Here: The Survey Is In

Ed.'s Note: What follows are some of the results from the first in a series of metromode surveys that will help create a blueprint for changing the region. The next survey will appear March 22 in the Regional Activation Zone — metromode's place to get inspired, informed and connected to the community, found in the lower left corner of the metromode home page. To read more about the zone, click here.

In November 2006, six of the region's top civic organizations - New Detroit, the Detroit Regional Chamber, Detroit Renaissance, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan - joined forces to form a unified group called One D: Transforming Regional Detroit. Their goal is to ensure the region works together to achieve measurable goals in six areas of priority:

1.  Economic prosperity
2.  Educational preparedness
3.  Regional transit
4.  Race relations
5.  Regional cooperation
6.  Quality of life.

While each of these organizations works hard to meet their own specific objectives, all recognize that they have a collective responsibility to the region as well.

Input and data gained from the community, government officials and other organizations outside of One D are extremely important factors in the success of this unprecedented transformation effort. This information will be used by One D to build a one-vision, one-plan blueprint for transforming Southeast Michigan. The final blueprint is expected to be unveiled at the 2007 Mackinac Policy Conference.

As part of this data gathering effort, the publishers of Model D and metromode and United Way for Southeastern Michigan have partnered to regularly survey the Detroit region, on behalf of the One D partnership and each of its member organizations. By focusing on key quality of life and economic issues, we hope to get a better handle on the pulse of Southeast Michigan.

We want to serve up surveys that help us, and others, better understand what our residents are thinking. We also want to make this information available to outside organizations working to make the Detroit region a better place to work and live.

Our community is at an important crossroads and we want to be able to measure our progress through the opinions of our neighbors. We hope you'll join us on this journey.

Each month we'll post a new survey. Upon review and analysis, we'll select the most pertinent questions and periodically return to them over the next several years. In this way we will be able to track perceptual change over time and match that to the demographic and economic indicators. These will be reported in the One D Report Card.

Our first survey, which appeared in the February 15 issue of metromode, and ran until March 9, was designed to obtain feedback on "quality of life" issues in Southeast Michigan.

On March 22 we will tackle the new "branding" effort from the Metro Convention and Visitors Brand, followed in April by a look at race relations in metro Detroit.

Future surveys will delve into art and culture, transportation, education, economic opportunities and more. We welcome suggestions from organizations and individuals regarding other issues of importance and hope that you will join us as we take the "Pulse of Metro Detroit."

Quality of life in metro Detroit

The first survey addressed a number of Quality of Life issues in Metro Detroit. It asked a host of questions, the results of which we will be reporting in a longer report (available online here the week of March 19).

A key question asked the following:
 
Several items that may influence your perception of living in the Southeast Michigan region are listed below. Please rate each item on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 means "very satisfied" and 1 means "very unsatisfied."

The chart below provides a summary of the two ends of the spectrum – 5 (very satisfied) and 1 (very dissatisfied).

While dissatisfaction ruled the day for most of the factors listed, respondents did show a great deal of satisfaction with the "quality of the region's post-secondary education" and the "availability of arts and cultural amenities." 72% of respondents were satisfied (very or somewhat) with our post-secondary educational opportunities, while 58% were satisfied with the region's arts and cultural opportunities.

On the other end of the spectrum, only 7 percent of respondents were satisfied with the "availability of quality jobs" (77% were dissatisfied), and only 10 percent were satisfied with "how the region values education and retains talent" (69% were dissatisfied).

We followed up the ranking question with the following:
 
Which THREE of these reasons will have the most impact on your decision to stay in the Southeast Michigan Region for the next 10 years?

An initial analysis of the first of three reasons given spells trouble for our region. The availability of quality jobs far outdistanced any other response with 44% of the total. The quality of public schools came in second at 17%, with regional values of education and talent retention placing third with just 8 percent. All three of these issues ranked very low in their "satisfaction ratings."

We also found that a number of respondents (almost 9 percent) wanted to provided other issues that were of importance to them. While they covered a wide range of issues, the primary categories were family, crime, and transportation. A full report will be produced by March 23.

In addition to a further analysis of questionnaire responses, we will also be looking for variations by geography, age and other demographic characteristics. Based on the consistency of responses that we found in last year's United Way Community Assessment survey (across geography, age, race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status), we anticipate finding similar consistency in this survey.