From Understanding Greater New Haven
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New Haven Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey and Workshops
Additional information and results will be posted here in the near future. Please stay tuned!
Upcoming Workshops
Workshops regarding the 2010 Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey are being planned in a variety of neighborhoods. These are informal events where residents can meet neighbors, discuss results and identify further action steps, regardless of whether or not they took the survey:
- Downtown and Wooster Square Management Team: May 8th, 8:30AM-12PM, Conte School, Chapel St., New Haven.
- Dixwell Community Management Team: June 12th, 10AM-1PM, Location TBD. New Haven
- East Shore: June 26, 2010, Follow up to be announced in September.
- Westville Management Team / Westville Village Renaissance Alliance: TBD
- Ronan-Edgehill Neighborhood Association (private neighborhood group): TBD
- Quinnipiac River Community Group: TBD
- City Point Neighborhood: TBD
Additional workshops will be announced. For more information on how to get involved in your local neighborhood, please email newhavensurvey@gmail.com or call 203.936.9643.
Background: 2010 New Haven Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey
New Haven has a rich history of Civic Vitality that enhances the physical and social assets of city neighborhoods. When citizens are able to form bonds around common interests, these neighborhoods can be made even better. Numerous studies have demonstrated that communities with high levels of civic engagement have better public safety and health than those where residents lack social interconnectedness.
As the latest example of civic participation in New Haven, neighbors collected responses on the inaugural New Haven Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey between January and April 2010. The survey was written and organized by the citywide community management team (CMT), which actively courted the involvement of each of the city’s 12 neighborhood-based CMTs as well as other neighborhood-based associations. Over 1,200 responses were received by survey organizers, with the largest response rates coming from within neighborhoods like East Rock, Dixwell, Wooster Square, Quinnipiac River, City Point and Westville that established all-volunteer citizen committees to actively campaign and collect paper and online surveys.
The New Haven Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey, and upcoming Neighborhood Workshops, have been designed with three main goals:
1. To provide a starting point for each neighborhood to form their own plan of action around local quality of life concerns. The surveys and discussions to occur at each workshop will help groups target specific physical assets and policies that are strengths as well as those that could be improved. Neighborhood residents will be charged with planning and directing the workshops.
2. To help neighborhoods identify their internal resources. Numerous citizens, including those whose family commitments or person schedules do not normally allow them to attend meetings in their neighborhoods, have used the survey to indicate specific ways in which they would volunteer to help their communities. The survey and workshops will help point to reasons why neighborhoods have such a strong sense of community, and ways to foster it going forward.
3. By engaging additional residents and allowing them to meet their neighbors through the upcoming workshops, neighborhood groups and management teams will attract new members. This will increase their future ability to take action.
As survey results are compiled, DataHaven will make neighborhood-level results available at its website (http://www.ctdatahaven.org). Since the survey results should be combined with community discussion, they will initially be shared at the Neighborhood Workshops. DataHaven is a third-party, nonprofit data intermediary that will ensure accuracy of reporting, provide a permanent public home for the data, and maintain the anonymity of the information collected by the survey. A final report in July 2010 will evaluate the significance of the survey and neighborhood workshops as a whole.
Although the survey results were non-randomized and will not be generalized to the population as a whole or used to compare across neighborhoods, the volume of responses means that they are interesting in and of themselves. Survey results will be most meaningful in neighborhoods where participation rates were very high. Since 10 questions were identical to the Fall 2009 Yale CARE survey on community health (which was randomized), it will be possible to make some comparisons with representative data received from questions that have to do with perceptions of walkability, public safety and community cohesion.
About the Participants
Organizers
• The New Haven Neighborhood Quality of Life Survey and Workshops arebeing organized by Community Management Teams (CMTs) and other local neighborhood associations. CMTs consist of members of the community who organize a monthly forum for problem-solving and exchange, centering on quality of life and public safety issues. The idea for the survey was initially developed by Doug Hausladen and Ken Gleasman of the Downtown-Wooster Square Management Team but was developed with the input of many community partners. The New Haven survey was based on analysis of about a dozen other community surveys and social assessments from throughout the United States, including the Center For Neighborhoods in Louisville’s “Neighborhood Assessment Program,” and the survey work of Project for Public Spaces (PPS), a nonprofit that helps foster the development of civic spaces in support of stronger communities.
Data Partner
• DataHaven, a non-profit (501(c)3) organization, is providing the survey organizers with technical assistance and data access. DataHaven’s mission is to improve the Greater New Haven region by compiling and sharing high quality public information for effective decision making. DataHaven is a formal partner of the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP), a collaborative national effort by the Urban Institute of Washington, DC, and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood information systems in local policymaking and community building.
Supporter
• The survey and neighborhood workshops are partially supported by grants from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven. Based in New Haven, the Community Foundation is among the oldest and largest of more than 700 community foundations in the United States and the largest grantmaker in the New Haven Region. The Foundation’s mission is to create positive and sustainable change by increasing the amount of and enhancing the impact of community philanthropy.
News Coverage
1. NHR 050910 QOL Survey has Good News and Bad News, New Haven Register, May 9, 2010
