March-April 2024
Quality of Life:
Riverside, CA
Executive Summary
- The majority of respondents positively rated the quality of life in Riverside (68%), and reported being likely to both recommend Riverside as a place to live (69%) and remain in Riverside five years from now (72%). - When asked what issue they would like to see the City of Riverside devote more resources towards, the most popular topic mentioned was homelessness.
- Quality of fire protection services, quality of water service, and quality of library programs and services were among the highest rated community characteristics, with 73%, 65%, and 65% of respondents rating them positively respectively.
- Traffic on major city streets and quality of street pavement maintenance were rated the lowest, with only 36% of respondents rating them favorably.
- The most important community characteristics according to respondents were water service (96% somewhat or very important), traffic on major city streets (95%), and street pavement maintenance (95%).
Report structure
01 Methodology
02 Overall Satisfaction
03 Community Characteristics
04 Focus/Maintain
05 Summary
Methodology
01 Methodology
Sample
706 respondents were recruited online between March 20th and April 24th, 2024, using targeted ads on various platforms (e.g., social media, apps for Android and IOS) as well as online survey panels. An additional 110 responses were collected when respondents shared the distribution link in a Facebook group. These responses were used to supplement the Zencity-recruited responses for free-text questions. Using data from the US Census Bureau, this survey employed quotas to match the distribution of race, ethnicity, age, and gender in Riverside, ensuring that the sample represents the entire population of city.
Weighting
To make sure our sample is representative, a technique
called rake-weighting was used to balance out any
remaining differences between the makeup of the survey
respondents and the community. This process serves as a statistical safeguard against any demographic group
being overrepresented or underrepresented in the final
score calculations by giving overrepresented groups a
lower weight and underrepresented groups a higher
weight in the analysis.
Overall Satisfaction
02 Overall satisfaction in Riverside: 68% of respondents rated the overall quality of life in Riverside as excellent or good, and only 6% rated it as poor or very poor. While 69% of respondents reported being likely or very likely to recommend Riverside as a place to live, a higher number of respondents (72%) reported that they are likely or very likely to live in Riverside 5 years from now, while only 11% and 14% of respondents reported being unlikely to do either respectively.
Q4: How likely are you to be living in Riverside 5 years from now? Q2: How is the overall quality of life in Riverside?
Q3: How likely are you to recommend Riverside as a place to live?
Overall quality of life: 68% of respondents are satisfied with the overall quality of life in Riverside. Respondents in the highest income bracket are most satisfied (81%). There was also a high rate of satisfaction among male respondents (74%), those aged 18−34 (73%), and Black/African American respondents (72%).
Q2: How is the overall quality of life in Riverside?
Riverside as a place to live: 69% of respondents reported being likely or very likely to recommend RIverside as a place to live. There was a high rate of likeliness among male respondents (76%), those aged 35−54 (75%), and those in the highest income bracket (80%).
Respondents aged 55+ were the least likely to recommend Riverside as a place to live, with only 59% being likely or very likely.
Q3: How likely are you to recommend Riverside as a place to live?
Riverside 5 years from now: 72% of respondents reported being likely or very likely to be living in Riverside 5 years from now.
Respondents in the highest income bracket reported being the most likely (83%). There was also a high rate of likelihood among respondents aged 35−54 (79%) and those in the middle income bracket (78%).
Q4: How likely are you to be living in Riverside 5 years from now?
Strengths: When asked what issue they would like to see the City of Riverside devote more resources towards, the most popular topic mentioned was homelessness (275 respondents). 137 respondents mentioned road maintenance, making it another popular issue.
Q5: What issue would you like to see the City of Riverside devote more resources towards? “Homeless services and mental health services
for the unhoused. We need the unhoused off
the streets.”
“Homeless; misplaced people. It is sad to see
people sleeping and on sidewalks. That is my
number one concern. Help those people with
resources.”
“The quality of our streets is horrendous.
Potholes, chewed up streets and trash is
everywhere. Can we not do something for
these eyesores?”
Link to open text responses
Community Characteristics
03 Satisfaction with community characteristics: Quality of fire protection services, quality of water service, and quality of library programs and services were among the highest rated community characteristics in Riverside, with 73%, 65%, and 65% of respondents rating them positively respectively. Traffic on major city streets and quality of street pavement maintenance were rated the lowest, with only 36% of respondents rating them favorably.
Importance of community characteristics: The most important community characteristics according to respondents were water service (96% somewhat or very important), traffic on major city streets (95%), street pavement maintenance (95%), and trash pickup (95%).
Focus/Maintain
03 Importance/Satisfaction: Community characteristics in the green "maintain" area were of high importance to respondents, and have relatively high satisfaction scores. Fire protection services and quality of water services were the most important services that also received the highest satisfaction rating. Red "focus" area are of high importance to respondents, but satisfaction was relatively low. Traffic on major city streets and street pavement maintenance received the highest importance score but the lowest satisfaction score.
Street pavement maintenance
Traffic on major city streets
Managing building and development
Environmental and
sustainability programs
Senior services
Building permit services
Riverside TV broadcasting
Street-sweeping services
Parks and recreation
Police services
Trash pick-up
Electric service
Library programs
and services
Water service
Fire protection
services
Focus Maintain
Maintain- Fire protection services: Overall, 73% of respondents are satisfied with the quality of fire protection services in Riverside, and only 3% are dissatisfied. The most satisfied demographics were those aged 35−54 (78%), aged 55+ (80%), those in the highest income bracket (81%), and White respondents (79%).
Q6: Quality of fire protection services
Maintain– Water service: Overall, 65% of respondents are satisfied with the quality of water service in Riverside, and only 9% are dissatisfied. The most satisfied demographics were those in the highest income bracket (76%), and the least satisfied were those in the lowest income bracket (62%), and female respondents (61%).
Q16: Quality of water service
Focus– Street pavement maintenance: Overall, only 36% of respondents reported being satisfied with the quality of street pavement maintenance in Riverside, and 37% reported being dissatisfied. Respondents aged 55+ were the least satisfied, with 31% rating the quality of street pavement maintenance as very poor, and only 17% rating it as excellent or good.
Q12: Quality of street pavement maintenance
Focus– Traffic on major city streets: Overall, 36% of respondents reported being satisfied with the traffic on major city streets in Riverside, and 32% reporting being dissatisfied. Respondents aged 55+ were the least satisfied, with 25% rating the traffic on major city streets as very poor, and only 19% rating it as excellent or good.
Q11: Traffic on major city streets
Summary
04 Summary
Maintain and Focus Community Characteristics
Quality of fire protection services 73% satisfied
3% dissatisfied
Quality of water service 65% satisfied
9% dissatisfied
Maintain Focus
Quality of street pavement maintenance 36% satisfied
37% dissatisfied
Traffic on major city streets 36% satisfied
32% dissatisfied
Overall satisfaction with
quality of life in Riverside 68% satisfied
6% dissatisfied
Likelihood to recommend
Riverside as a place to live 69% likely
11% unlikely
Likelihood to be living in
Riverside 5 years from now 72% likely
14% unlikely
Overall Satisfaction
Sample Breakdown
Gender
Age
Race
Questionnaire
Link to questionnaire