Cincinnati residents say maintaining streets, sidewalks and infrastructure should be officials' top priority.
The city hired the ETC Institute to conduct a survey with a random sample of residents. They analyzed responses from 1,313 residents that reflect the city's population according to race, gender, geography and income.
The new survey was based on the results of a similar one conducted in 2021. In that, respondents ranked a list of priorities by importance and current satisfaction — maintenance of streets, sidewalks and infrastructure was ranked highest in importance and lowest in satisfaction.
The new survey was conducted in late 2022, focusing on four priorities identified in the first round:
- Maintenance of city streets, sidewalks and infrastructure
- Police services
- Neighborhood services
- Overall effectiveness of city communication with the public
"Eighty-eight percent of respondents cited speeding and reckless driving near sidewalks and pedestrian crossings as a major issue," said Director of Performance and Data Analytics Eric Jamison. "A second close follower was potholes."
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The number one traffic calming measure identified is speed cushions/speed humps, with 46% of respondents saying they'd like to see those implemented.
The next highest priority is police services, which ranked seventh out of 13 for satisfaction.
"Our residents generally have a very positive perception of [the Cincinnati Police Department] and the work that they do," Jamison said. "Where we did see challenges within CPD was around visibility — not to be confused with enforcement, but just visibility."
About 60% of respondents say CPD has the ability to solve violent crime. About a third say CPD has the ability to prevent crimes.
Respondents had the chance to choose three police priorities they would like CPD to focus on over the next two years. The top five responses are:
- De-escalation and other interpersonal communication (45%)
- Foot patrols in neighborhoods (43%)
- Traffic enforcement (39%)
- Partnering with other city agencies to use non-police response to public safety issues (34%)
- Communication with the public about crime trends and prevention (31%)
For one category, communication with the community, the same questions were used to identify any progress over the past year.
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Respondents showed more satisfaction in nearly every category, including overall usefulness of the city website and the city's use of social media.
"Unfortunately, despite the significant improvement across the board, we still lag all of our peer cities and national benchmarks with regards to communication," Jamison said. "So while we're certainly trending in the right direction, there's still a considerable amount of work to be done in this space."
The first version of the survey asked participants to rate Cincinnati as a place to live, with 80% responding the city is a good or excellent place to live. Jamison says the 2023 survey will mirror the 2021 survey, including that question, so officials can check progress over the two-year period.
An interactive dashboard with the survey results is available on the ETC website here.
Full results of the survey are available on the city's website:
- A landing page on the main city page: Cincinnati-oh.gov/manager/community-survey
- A report (218 pages) that includes an executive summary, overall results, benchmark analysis, tabular data, and methodology
