Date: May 22, 2007

Overall Results from Miami Beach Community Satisfaction Surveys Are Favorable and Demonstrate Improvements

View the Survey Results: Executive Summary (Acrobat) , Complete Results (Acrobat)

Earlier this year, the City of Miami Beach, in collaboration with the Hay Group, conducted the second set of community phone surveys with residents and businesses (in both English and Spanish) to assist the City in developing, improving and implementing strategic priorities for the future of the City.

Overall results show that residents overall remain favorable across a number of survey items, and some services have improved further. Improvement in ratings by businesses was even more dramatic - almost half of comparable questions from 2005 improved by more than five points - now approaching the high level of resident satisfaction.

"I am pleased with the progress that we have been making. We can see results in many of the areas that we focused on over the last two years, for example, cleanliness and landscape maintenance in business areas, recreation programs, handling special events, improving communications with the community, and more," said Miami Beach City Manager Jorge M. Gonzalez.

Miami Beach continues to be often similar to and in many cases above the satisfaction levels received by other communities. Quality of life continues to be highly rated - over three fourths of Miami Beach residents rate the quality of life in Miami Beach as excellent or good and would recommend it to family and friends as a place to live (and the majority see it as getting better) and two thirds of residents continue to see Miami Beach government as meeting their needs.

Areas that improved in resident satisfaction were the cleanliness of neighborhoods and waterways, particularly in mid-beach and the Condo corridor and the rating of amount of information received from the City - those using Miami Beach media as their primary source of information were the most satisfied (MB magazine, CityPage, MBTV, etc.)

Moreover, improvement in ratings by businesses was even more dramatic - almost half of comparable questions from 2005 improved by more than five points - now approaching the high level of resident satisfaction. Areas that improved included: improvement in cleanliness of waterways and streets in business areas; landscape maintenance in rights of way and public areas; and overall experience when contacting the City.

The impacts of construction, especially traffic and mobility impacts continue to be a challenge - this is always a difficult challenge - but the City does have a unique opportunity because so many of its residents do not use a car as their primary mode of transportation, so in addition to focusing on the more difficult traffic flow improvements,
the City is also focusing on more bike paths and pedestrian trails, and continuing to work with Miami-Dade County on transit improvements.

Other areas for improvement continue to be: 1) improving the infrastructure (road conditions, sidewalks and storm drainage) - while underway, we still have much to do to catch up for the neglect that accumulated over many decades; and 2) the availability of museums/theatres and family-friendly activities. The city is making good progress with the availability of family-friendly activities since introducing its Arts in the Parks program. There were 20 attendees the first month and the most recent event in April had approximately 700 attendees.

"It is important for us to know whether we are meeting our community's needs and wants and whether our current vision and strategic plan are indeed the right ones based on the feedback we get back from this process," continued Gonzalez. "The results will be used to identify areas that can be further improved and update our strategic plan and supporting annual work plans to address them. And of course, we need to continue to do the things we're doing right, but even better."

The main objectives of the 2007 Community Satisfaction Survey were to understand satisfaction among City of Miami Beach residents and businesses with quality of life in the City, services received, City government, and recent initiatives; measure change since the 2005 Community Satisfaction Survey; benchmark Miami Beach to similar cities/jurisdictions; determine areas of strength and opportunities for improvement; utilize community input to support the budget process; and provide actionable data to make decisions.

Phone surveys were administered in January of 2007. There was a strong response from residents, businesses and community organizations including a willingness to participate in the survey, with more than 1,000 residents and over 500 businesses participating.

The City's current approved vision and strategic plan is on its way toward making Miami Beach an even better place: cleaner and safer; more beautiful and vibrant; a mature, stable residential community with well-improved infrastructure; a unique urban historic environment; a cultural, entertainment, tourism capital; and an international center for innovation in culture, recreation and business.

The Hay Group (www.haygroup.com/hayinsight) is an internationally recognized survey research firm with over 30 years of proven experience. Hay Insight has provides research-based diagnostic and consulting services to more than 3,000 clients around the world.

View the Survey Results: Executive Summary (Acrobat) , Complete Results (Acrobat)

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