2022 Resident Surveys

2022 Resident Survey - Report of Results(PDF, 5MB)
2022 Open Participation Web Survey - Report of Results(PDF, 671KB)  

Resident Survey Highlights

Littleton residents continue to praise their high quality of life in the community.

• About 9 in 10 survey respondents gave high marks to the overall quality of life in Littleton; this rating has remained stable over the past 10 years. Littleton residents gave higher ratings to the overall quality of life in their community when compared to other communities across the nation, and much higher ratings compared to communities in the Front Range.
• Additionally, about 9 in 10 residents felt that not only was Littleton an excellent or good place to live and to raise children, but their neighborhoods were excellent or good places to live as well. All these aspects have remained consistent over the past eight years and were higher than evaluations given in other communities across the country and in Colorado’s Front Range.
• Similar to 2020, the most commonly-cited reasons for living in Littleton included the location (77%), their neighborhoods (61%), and feeling safe (57%). These have continued to be the top three reasons each year since the baseline survey in 2012.

While residents continue to feel that Littleton is a safe community overall, resident concerns about crime prevention and policing have increased.

• As in 2020, survey respondents agreed that Littleton was a safe community (92%) and the city had a low crime rate (83%).
• Overall, ratings regarding safety in Littleton remained stable. Nearly all respondents indicated they felt safe in Downtown Littleton, in Littleton overall, and in their neighborhood during the day. About 4 in 5 residents felt somewhat or very safe in the other areas in Littleton and at night in the city.
• Residents felt as safe or safer downtown during the day compared to other communities across the country and in the Front Range. Safety ratings for neighborhoods at night were similar to the national average but much lower than the Front Range. Safety in parks, trails, natural open space areas continue to be rated lower than both the national and Front Range averages.
• When asked to identify the three most pressing issues facing the city in the next two years, 29% of survey respondents selected crime reduction as a top issue, which represented an 11% increase from 2020 to 2022.
• The one-third of residents who had been in contact with the Police Department in the 12 months prior to the survey evaluated a number of aspects of their most recent interaction with a Police Department employee. Many of these ratings, including the employee’s knowledge, responsiveness, helpfulness, use of force in a fair and effective way, and the overall impression of staff members, decreased significantly between 2020 and 2022.
• When assessing the quality of six specific services provided by the Littleton Police Department, such as crime solving, crime prevention, and protecting individual civil rights, ratings for five of the six listed services also decreased since the previous survey iteration.

While ratings for traffic and car travel have improved, those for public transit in Littleton have declined.

• Respondents were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements regarding the overall livability of Littleton. Residents were more likely to agree that traffic flows well on city streets in 2022, an increase of nine percentage points since 2020.
• Littleton residents were asked to select from a list up to three issues they felt were the most pressing for the city in the next two years. As in past years, traffic topped the list of concerns. However, it is noteworthy that the level of concern for this issue decreased in 2022, returning to similar percentages seen prior to 2018. Street maintenance (41%) also continued to be viewed as one of the top three issues facing the city and this proportion remained stable over time.
• When rating city-provided services related to transportation and mobility, trends over time were mixed: while scores for traffic enforcement and public transit services decreased from 2020 to 2022, those for downtown parking, snow plowing, and traffic flow improved.
• The quality of several aspects of transportation and travel were assessed on the survey. Overall, ratings of transportation tended to remain stable from 2020 to 2022 except for ease of driving, which increased, and Omnibus/Shopping Cart senior and disabled van service (which notably decreased by 20% since the previous survey iteration) and ease of traveling by bus (which decreased 13%).
• Littleton residents rated the importance of seven potential projects in Littleton over the next five to eight years. As rated by residents, the second most-important project in 2022 was reducing traffic congestion on city streets (63%); this represented an 11% decrease in importance since 2020.

Government performance is a resident priority, with some ratings declining over time.

• About three-quarters of residents felt the overall quality of services in Littleton was excellent or good, which was a significant decrease since 2020.
• When assessing both the quality and importance of various city-provided services, about 6 in 10 residents gave positive ratings to the quality of city management, while nearly 9 in 10 rated it as essential or very important. Typically, services that are rated relatively higher in importance and lower in quality represent potential priority areas for improvement for the city. In an analysis of quality versus importance, city management was identified as the top priority for the city.
• Littleton residents evaluated 17 aspects of city government performance. Of those who had an opinion, about half of respondents gave favorable ratings to most of these aspects. While most ratings remained stable between 2020 and 2022, the quality of work provided by city employees, at 72% positive, represented a 5% decrease from 2020.
• In 2022, 6 in 10 residents believed that city council decisions represent the best interest of citizens to a great or moderate extent, a significant decrease compared to 2020.

About the Open Participation Web Survey

As part of the effort to provide residents the opportunity to rate the quality of life in Littleton and their satisfaction with community amenities and their local government, the city conducted a scientific survey of 5,000 households within city boundaries. Survey invitations were sent to randomly selected households in June 2022 and data were collected through July 19, 2022. The survey invitations also contained a URL where the survey could be completed online on Polco (the city's survey vendor).

After the official data collection period was underway (see the 2022 Resident Survey - Report of Results), the city of Littleton made available a web-based survey to its residents through a link on the city’s website and other various communication avenues. Residents were able to complete the survey for two weeks in July 2022 and 128 residents responded. This report contains the results of this open participation administration of the web-based survey.

These data were not collected through a random sample and it is unknown who in the community was aware of the link on the city’s website; therefore, a level of confidence in the representativeness of the sample cannot be estimated. However, to reduce bias where possible, these data were weighted to match the demographic characteristics of the 2010 Census and 2017 American Community Survey estimates for adults in the City of Littleton. The primary objective of weighting survey data is to make the survey sample reflective of the larger population of the community. Survey results were weighted using the population norms to reflect the appropriate percent of those residents in the city. The variables used for weighting the household respondent data were gender, age, housing unit type (attached or detached), housing tenure (rent or own), and area of residence. No adjustments were made for design effects. The results of the weighting scheme are presented in the table in the full report.