You know it when you have it and you miss it when you don’t. That may be the best definition of ‘quality of life,’ the well-chased and ill-defined state of being. While a number of national magazines rate quality of life, they typically don’t ask residents what they think.  

According to Tom I Miller, Ph.D., director of the National Research Center, Inc., ICMA’s partner in conducting The National Citizen Survey™ (NCS), on average three-quarters of Americans rated their quality of life as excellent or good. "And it’s been like that for years, even in 2008, when we’ve all suffered the vice of a tightening economy." The ratings of communities and neighborhoods "as a place to live" or raise children were even higher, with about 4 in 5 giving ratings of good or better. Other characteristics of a quality community were not viewed favorably by so many residents. Fewer residents gave high ratings to their sense of community, the openness of the community to diverse populations, or the community as a place to work or retire. 

The NCS team mined its database of citizen survey opinion from the NCS so answers come directly from residents’ own perspectives and not from secondary sources. Results emerge from over 170 unique jurisdictions in more than 40 states with responses from close to 100,000 Americans. NCS found that more residents in the North Central part of the country gave the highest marks to many of the characteristics of a quality community than did residents from anywhere else. 

More residents in the South and West gave the highest marks to their communities as places to retire. Weather may be part of the advantage that starts the Western and Southern U.S. with a leg up, but strong service delivery is likely to re-balance the scales as competition for well-planned older communities.  

"When we look at what matters in the overall rating of quality of life in a community, several factors stand out. Community wealth accounts for a lot with more residents in wealthier communities (87%) than poorer communities (65%) giving top scores to where they live. But service delivery is key, too," says Miller. 

Miller points out that in communities with roughly the same aggregate income and other amenities, good or bad municipal service delivery makes a difference in how people view the quality of life in their community. For example, in two communities with the same household incomes, residents may have the same positive opinion about the community as a place to raise children and the recreation opportunities that exist.  However, in one, residents admire the overall quality of local government service delivery (80% give a rating of “good” or better) while in the other, service delivery is considered mediocre (50% give a rating of “good” or better).  In the community with the better service delivery score, about 80% of residents rate the quality of life as excellent or good, but in the second community, the overall perception of the quality of life is significantly lower –72% excellent or good. 

“Such findings highlight the importance of high quality municipal and county service delivery, not only as a measure of performance in its own right, but because well-delivered local government services influence residents’ sense of their overall quality of community life – even controlling for community wealth and other amenities,” concludes Miller. 

For more information on conducting citizen surveys, visit icma.org/ncs.