News Flash

CARRBORO, N.C. -- Carrboro ranks as a “high performing city” with nearly all (98%) of the residents surveyed rating the Town of Carrboro as excellent or good as a place to live, as a place to raise children (98%), and as a place they feel welcome (96%), according to results from the Carrboro Resident Survey.

The Carrboro Town Council received the results from the biennial survey at its April 12 meeting. The status of “high performing city” comes from the national surveying company, which has benchmarking data to compare Carrboro to cities across the country and region.

“I am pleased to see in these survey results that residents rate the quality of life and their satisfaction with services and local government as excellent or good,” Town Manager Richard J. White III said. “This is certainly a great validation of the high-quality services that town employees have continued to deliver despite the challenges presented by the pandemic. We will continue to review the data and feedback to find areas where we can improve services, increase civic engagement, and address quality of life issues in the community.”  

Highlights from Overall Survey Results 

• Notable high areas of satisfaction are overall appearance of the town (82%), access to parks and green space (80%), and availability of festivals and community events (78%). Notable high areas of satisfaction with town services were public works (91%), fire services (87%), parks and recreation facilities (87%) recreation and cultural programs (83%), and police services (81%).
• Most important categories of Town services identified by residents were parks and recreation facilities, public works, and police services. 
• The top three priorities for the Town were identified from importance-satisfaction data as being affordable housing, economic development, and police services.  
• Residents were asked to prioritize the allocation of funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the purpose of which is to address the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The actions that had the highest levels of support were providing services to disproportionately impacted communities and investing in infrastructure. 

In an effort to hear voices from residents who are historically hard to reach, a second survey of residents who live in the town’s Qualified Census Tracts. These tracts have 50 percent of households with incomes below 60 percent of the Area Median Gross Income (AMGI) or have a poverty rate of 25 percent or more. Results from this specialized survey will be used along with other information to identify American Rescue Act Plan (ARPA) funding priorities.

Respondents from these areas of town were more likely to be renters (78% in the QCT as compared to 45% in the overall survey), younger (43% in the QCT are ages 18-34 as compared to 19% in the overall survey) people of color (13.3% are Black, 9.6% Asian and 9.6 % Hispanic in the QCT as compared to 11% Black, 9% Asian and 7% Hispanic in the overall survey), and have less access to the internet (6% reported no access to the Internet in the QCT as compared to 3% in the overall survey.) 

Highlights from QCT Survey Results 

• Most important categories of Town services were parks and recreation, housing and community, and transportation.  
• Satisfaction was lower than the overall survey results for ease of walking, adequacy of street lighting and availability of sidewalks.  
• Residents were asked to prioritize the allocation of funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the purpose of which is to address the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The actions that had the highest levels of support were providing services to disproportionately impacted communities and investing in infrastructure. 

Benchmarking
When Carrboro is compared to communities across the region and the United States, it scores the highest in every comparable category. For example, overall ratings for Carrboro “as a place to live” were 98% for Carrboro, 60% in the Atlantic Region and 50% in the United States. This data was collected from ETC Institute national and regional surveys. The Atlantic Region comprises North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia and New Jersey. 

Methodology 
The six-page survey was mailed to a random sample of 2,000 households in Carrboro in December 2021. The goal to obtain completed surveys from at least 400 residents was surpassed when a total of 512 residents completed the survey. The survey mailing was followed up by emails and phone calls inviting responses. To encourage participation, ETC Institute communicated that a VISA gift card would be presented to one of the survey respondents. 

###