Every three years, Langley City completes a community survey to track quality of life metrics about the community, and to get opinions from residents about topical issues. This survey has been run by Ipsos over the last 15 years. The results of the survey reflect a representative sample of people in Langley City.
At last night’s Langley City council meeting, the latest survey results were presented. Over the next few days, I will be going over the results of this survey.
One of the basic questions asked in the survey is “how would you rate the overall quality of life in the City of Langley today?” Over the last 15 years of surveys, this has remained constant with 95% of survey respondents saying that quality of life is good or very good.
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| Overall Quality of Life today for Langley City residents. Select image to enlarge. |
The ratio of people that choose very good, good, poor, and very poor has not significantly changed since the 2016 survey.
What is interesting is that when people were asked how quality of life has changed over the last three years, while 65% of people said that it has stayed the same or improved, 32% said that it has worsened. In 2016, people’s sentiment was statistically identical. It seems that while about a third of Langley City residents believe that quality of life has worsened over the last six year, this doesn’t seem to be reflected in how they rate their quality of life which has remained high. There seems to be a disconnected.
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| Change in Quality of Life over the last three years for Langley City residents. Select image to enlarge. |
When asked why they believe quality of life is improving, survey participants identified the top reasons as:
- Recreational opportunities: 13%
- Well-maintained and clean community: 10%
- General investment in the community/new things: 7%
- New/improved roads: 7%
- Growth/development: 7%
When asked what are the reasons why quality of life has worsened, the top reasons were:
- Increased poverty/homelessness: 40%
- Increased crime/drug activity: 22%
- Over-development: 8%
- Population growth: 6%
- Increased traffic: 6%
One of the reasons why I think that a full third of Langley City residents believe quality of life has worsened is because they see increased homelessness in our community. This is an on-going concern, and one of the reasons why I believe we need more supportive housing in Langley.
When asked another way about top issues facing Langley City, survey participants noted:
- Social Issues
- Crime Issues
- Transportation Issues
These top three issues have not changed over the last decade.
Looking at the results of the quality of life section of the survey, it is clear to me that while people believe that they have a high quality of life, they want all levels of government to work together to make sure that everyone has a high quality of life in Langley City. This means addressing long-standing challenges around homelessness and poverty in our community.
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