The 2006 Quality of Life Survey (yes, I know it says 2007 on the slide) provided us good information about what residents like about their city and how much they like it. For example, in the pie graph to the left (click on it to see it in a larger size) residents were asked by the polling consultant to rate the overall quality of life in Eden Prairie. Residents were offered five responses from which to choose: Excellent, Good, Only Fair, Poor, or Unsure. The response to the question was overwhelmingly positive: 97% of those responding rated the quality of life in Eden Prairie was Excellent or Good. Only 2% rated in Only Fair. And nobody rated it as Poor. These ratings are similar to the ratings given by residents of the cities of Minnetonka, Edina, Woodbury, Eagan and Shoreview in their respective quality of life surveys. Does the city government take full credit for this high rating? No, we don’t. The rating is attributable to the “community” which is much more than just the city government. But does the city government play a big role in creating this exceptional quality of life rating? You bet it does. I’ll touch on that more later.
The second graph shows what residents reported to the question: “What do you like most about Eden Prairie?”. To nobody’s surprise, the top two things that residents reported they liked best about Eden Prairie were Parks and Schools, in that order. We hear this all the time, that’s why it was no surprise to me. The factor that surprised me was that “shopping” came in #3. That says a lot about Eden Prairie’s maturation over the past 10 years. There are many people who live here that can remember the days of a dead shopping mall and not much variety in restaurants. Today, the Eden Prairie center is thriving and we’ve had spurt of new retail growth in the City’s Town Center area with the recent addition of such retailers as Best Buy, Gander Mountain, Sports Authority and Home Goods. Again, is the city government responsible for our good ratings here? Yes for parks. No for schools. We’ve been very helpful for the shopping rating, but General Growth Corporation and the new retailers deserve the most credit for that surprise rating.
The third graph I’ll refer to today asked residents to identify the “most serious issue” facing Eden Prairie today. Like the question about what they liked most about the City, this question was posed as an open-ended question. Residents filled in the blank with their own response. They were not given a list to choose from. You can click on the graph to see the response information in more detail. The most serious issue in Eden Prairie, according to our residents is……Nothing. 21% of the respondents said Eden Prairie had no serious issues. When asked the same question in nearby cities, the consultant told us that 46% of residents in Minnetonka said nothing, while 17% of Edina residents said nothing. The second highest ranked issue in Eden Prairie was “taxes”. 18% of our residents said that “taxes” were the most serious issue in the city. About 1 in 5. The consultant told us that the norm for the “taxes” response to this question in 2nd and 3rd ring Twin Cities suburbs is 30%. 18% is significant, but well below the norm.
Tomorrow: What do residents think of Eden Prairie city staff?
