Like many other American cities in its position—an inner ring suburb of a large metropolitan Area—Richfield , Minnesota is faced with a challenge.

Located just west of Minneapolis , Richfield (pop. 38,000) shows the demographic signs of a mature suburb. For example, the median age is 42 years old; 21% of households are headed by retirees; and 20 percent of households are composed solely of senior citizens.

Yet it also has indicators of a growing city: 23% of households arrived during the past two years, 35% of the population is under 35 years old, and nearly 40% of Richfield households fall into the upscale white collar category.

So just as a well-established business must retain its loyal customers while attracting new ones to promote growth, the City of Richfield must maintain a service level to satisfy its long-time residents while drawing new residents and new commercial development to maintain its fiscal health.

To gauge its performance in the eyes of its residents, Richfield commissioned Minneapolis-based Decision Resources Ltd. to conduct a telephone survey.

Jim Prosser, Richfield city manager, says the survey, which drew the opinions of 400 randomly selected residents, was intended to accomplish four tasks:

1. to assess the City's ability to meet the service requirements of its residents,

2. to assess the needs for facilities and services,

3. to look at how effectively the City communicates with the residents, and

4. to explore certain issues facing the city.

"Specifically, we were trying to understand how people perceived some of the redevelopment efforts we have underway in our community. We also looked at how people viewed overall quality of life issues," Prosser says.

Hungry for information

It was a lengthy survey (nearly 150 questions) that could have been even longer, Prosser says. "The biggest problem was limiting the (number of issues discussed). We could really do a lot more in terms of surveys simply because people here (at the City) are so hungry for information.

"There's a constant need for us to make sure we're in tune with what people are looking for and that we also understand how they perceive issues. Those were two distinct purposes in the survey: assessing needs and looking at perceptions," Prosser says.

Survey topics

In addition to quality of life, respondents were asked about: community identity and neighborliness; shopping habits; use of parks and participation in recreation and leisure programs; property tax rates; public works and fire/police service; performance of City staff; awareness of health and public safety problems and services; changes in City code enforcement; awareness of City publications and sources of information about Richfield.

They also supplied information on length of residence, age of household members, type of dwelling, marital status, occupation, education, and income.

Specific sections were aimed at gathering opinions on the proposed expansion of a major freeway that runs through Richfield , and the City's efforts to attract new business and expand the tax base.

98% approval

Overall, a whopping 98% approve of the quality of life in Richfield , with 47% rating it "excellent."

"I think what surprised us, and it was a pleasant surprise, was that despite the fact that we have a number of important issues facing us, people rated the city very highly. Some of the information we gained was very helpful in terms of finding out how people view redevelopment efforts," Prosser says.

Residents were divided over using development incentives such as tax breaks to attract new commercial and retail developments, with 45% supporting, and 43% opposing. 65% support "an aggressive effort by the City to attract new commercial and retail development," but an almost equal number (63%) would oppose such an effort if it meant that the potential sites were adjacent to their neighborhood.

Some other findings: 92% rate Richfield parks and recreational facilities "good" or "excellent;" 30% rate property taxes as high, 53% label them "about average," with 56% favoring a property tax increase to maintain City services at their current level; 76% approve of the job the Mayor and the City Council are doing.

Two to three years

Bill Morris, president of Decision Resources, says he recommends that cities do this type of survey about every two to three years, although for suburbs experiencing rapid growth, it's often necessary to do it more often to keep track of the effects of expansion.

"That (two to three year gap) permits a city to attack a problem or an opportunity, and we can also test to see how effective their programs have been," he says.

Morris says that on one level, the kind of questions cities typically want surveys to answer is consistent from city to city.

"There's a common set of issues that most cities are interested in gauging—the general quality of life questions, service evaluation, and then what I would call general problems facing the community that you see in any suburb, such as development issues. Then there's divergence from city to city. Richfield had some particular concerns being a mature, inner ring suburb that would be very, very different from cities in high growth areas."

Low refusal rate

The process of administering the questionnaire was aided by the definite willingness of the respondents to take the survey. The refusal rate was 3.5%, which Morris says is typical of the past city surveys his company has done, all of which had single digit refusal rates.

"In a sense you're hitting them in their own back yard. Most people prove to be knowledgeable and willing to spend the time and be fairly thoughtful about local issues. We've found it's amazingly different from the reception we get on product surveys."

Part of paving the way for that acceptance is using community newspapers to increase awareness of the survey, letting people know that the City has hired an outside firm to do research.

"That tends to really set up a good atmosphere, because we've found in most of our surveys that roughly 80% of suburban communities tend to read those local papers," Morris says.

Cooperation

Prosser says a similar spirit of cooperation was used when deciding the issues to be examined in the research.

"First of all, the City Council assessed the different areas they wanted to review, the staff did the same thing and we worked together to develop the scope of the survey. Once that was completed, (Decision Resources) drafted up a questionnaire and we talked about it, got some feedback from the staff and the Council, and made some refinements."

Further research

To supplement the information obtained from the telephone study, Prosser says Richfield is in the process of conducting a "straight marketing analysis-type of survey" using focus groups and further research work to explore issues related to relocation. Unlike the telephone study (which was City-sponsored) the new research is using support from the Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters, and many area businesses and churches.

"The goal is to develop and implement strategies to directly address certain issues. Specifically, to find out the reasons people move here, the reasons they move away, which ones we can affect, and to correct any problems that we may have."