City Services Satisfaction Survey 2007 City Services Satisfaction Survey | Page 11

Overall Rating Of Arlington And City Services
In terms of quality of life, Arlington residents rate the city moderately high as a place to
live. Four out of five residents (82%) rate Arlington as offering a “good” or “excellent”
quality of life. While the quality of life rating in 2007 has increased over 2005, it is
gradually trending downward, and has declined significantly from 2000.
Residents rank the feeling of safety as the most important aspect of a city that affects
the quality of life rated by 22 percent of respondents. Feeling of safety includes feeling
of safety in the city (14%) and crime rate (8%). The next highest rated attribute was the
quality of schools with 12 percent, followed by convenient location (7%), entertainment
venues (6%), city appearance/cleanliness (6%), management of traffic (5%), and
economy (4%). Sense of community, city services, public transportation, recreation
facilities, cost of housing, environment condition, taxes, and medical services all
received less than a 3 percent mention.
City services in Arlington generally receive high overall ratings, with eight of the thirteen
services rated receiving a top-two-box rating (“good” or “excellent”) of 87 percent or
higher. The Arlington Fire Department, at 95 percent, continues to receive the highest
ratings among city services, followed by Emergency Medical Services, Community
Education Services by the Fire Department, curbside recycling, convention center,
garbage collection, landfill efforts, and police. Services receiving the lowest ratings are
municipal courts, animal services, Park & Ride, Handitran, and One Start Shop.
Overall ratings of the city handling concerns in a satisfactory manner rated generally
high with more than half of the services receiving a top-two-box rating (“good” or
“excellent”) of 85 percent or higher. Once again the fire department had the highest
rating at 97 percent. Community Planning and Development and the Street Department
rated the lowest in handling concerns in a satisfactory manner, both with a rating of
64 percent.
Consistent with these overall ratings, customer service provided by the city is rated
moderately high (79%), this is a slight increase over last years rating of 78 percent.
Only four percent of residents rate customer service as “poor”, this was no change from
the previous year.
Decision Analyst, Inc.
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