City leaders looking for a positive spin on the new WNEC poll on quality of life in the city will have their work cut out for them.
According to the poll, 54 percent of city residents consider Springfield a “poor” or “fair” place to live. Residents of neighboring towns (pollsters interviewed about 1,000 people, half of them Springfield residents and the rest residents of other Hampden County communities) were even less flattering: 78 percent of outsiders described it as poor or fair. The percent of non-residents who described the city as an “excellent” place to live? Zero.
Fifty-four percent of Springfield residents overall described the city’s public schools as poor or fair; among respondents with kids in the city schools, that figure rose to 64 percent. And 44 percent of residents think the city is a “somewhat worse” or “much worse” place to live than it was five years ago. Twenty percent consider it “somewhat better”; only 3 percent chose “much better.”
The biggest problem facing the city? Crime, according to 60 percent of city residents and 70 percent of non-residents. Meanwhile, 71 percent of residents think the city is doing only a poor or fair job fighting crime.
In an article by Peter Goonan in this morning’s Springfield Republican, city leaders tried to offer some relief from the bleak portrait created by the poll results. “We need to continue to work hard to get out the good news of the city. Many good things are happening,” Mayor Domenic Sarno said, in keeping with his self-created role as the city’s chief executive booster.
Apparently, the mayor’s not the only one keeping an upbeat attitude: 47 percent of Springfield respondents believe that conditions in the city will be “somewhat better” or “much better” five years from now; only 21 percent predicted that things will be worse.
And perhaps the most promising bit of data: in this city where residents have historically found identity and pride in their neighborhoods, 68 percent described their own neighborhoods as good or excellent places to live—a reminder that meaningful positive change often starts on a very local level.
