A survey commissioned by Olympia reveals 7 out of 10 residents believe the city is headed in the wrong direction, reflecting a further decline in residents’ negative perceptions of the city’s direction. The same question asked in 2021 found a bare majority, 51% believed that Olympia was on the wrong track.
Olympia hired Embold Research to conduct an online survey in May to gauge public opinion among the residents.
In a statement through Actually Olympia: the Blog, Olympia City Manager Jay Burney said while the community is not yet seeing progress on some key initiatives, “the survey does confirm that our work is rightly focused on the issues our community is most concerned about - housing and homelessness, public safety, the economy, and communication.”
Many residents are satisfied with the city’s delivery of many core services, such as emergency services and water and sanitation. Only a few residents express dissatisfaction with the city’s recreational, cultural, or community offerings.
But three in four Olympians believe downtown is on the wrong track, mainly due to concerns about homelessness and safety. And about 85% of residents surveyed are dissatisfied with the city’s handling of housing and homelessness services, which they see as the most important issue to address.
Negative opinions are widely held across a range of demographics and other characteristics. For example, 3 in 4 people who identify as Persons of Color (POC) feel Olympia is on the wrong track and 2 in 3 people identifying as White say Olympia is on the wrong track.
|
Ethnicity |
Right direction |
Wrong track |
|
Persons of Color (POC) |
24 |
76 |
|
White |
33 |
67 |
Regardless of income, 60% or more agree Olympia is on the wrong track.
|
By Income |
Right direction |
Wrong track |
|
Less than $45K |
31 |
69 |
|
$45K‐ $89K |
40 |
60 |
|
$90K‐$149K |
33 |
67 |
|
$150K or more |
23 |
77 |
Two-thirds of renters and homeowners also believe Olympia is on the wrong track.
|
Living Arrangement |
Right direction |
Wrong track |
|
Homeowner |
29 |
71 |
|
Renter/Lives with Friends or Family |
35 |
65 |
As would be expected, those who moved here most recently feel best about the direction Olympia is headed. Those who have lived here the longest, nearly 4 in 5 (79%) Olympians who lived here for more than 20 years believe the city is on the wrong track.
|
Lived in Olympia… |
Right direction |
Wrong track |
|
Less than 5 years |
57 |
43 |
|
5‐10 Years |
29 |
71 |
|
11‐20 years |
31 |
69 |
|
More than 20 years |
21 |
79 |
Big declines in satisfaction as a place to live
The three most recent Community Engagement Surveys (2017, 2021 and 2023) show a steep decline in satisfaction with the city as a place to live. The percentage answering the question, “How would you rate Olympia as a place to live” as excellent to satisfactory has declined from 92% in 2017 to 68% in 2021 and 53% in 2023 -- a 39% and 15% drop respectively.
In 2017, 1 in 5 of those surveyed rated Olympia as an “excellent” (22%) place to live. By 2023, only 6% of people rated Olympia as “excellent.” Put in terms of a letter grade, Olympia has gone from a solid A to a D.
|
How would you rate Olympia as a place to live? |
2017 |
2021 |
2023 |
Change 2017 to 2023 |
Change 2021 to 2023 |
|
Excellent to Satisfactory |
92% |
68% |
53% |
-39% |
-15% |
|
Excellent |
22% |
7% |
6% |
-16% |
-1% |
|
Very Good |
53% |
31% |
21% |
-32% |
-10% |
|
Satisfactory |
17% |
30% |
25% |
+8% |
-5% |
|
Only Fair or Poor |
8% |
32% |
47% |
+39% |
+15% |
|
Only Fair |
6% |
21% |
27% |
+21% |
+6% |
|
Poor |
2% |
11% |
20% |
+18% |
+9% |
In 2017, the number one reason (63%) for rating livability “poor” was “homeless”. In the 2023 survey, 89% of people who said that Olympia is on the wrong track identified dissatisfaction with homelessness.
Safety concerns: “A majority of Olympians feel unsafe in the city”
Compared with 2017, half as many Olympia residents today said they feel safe in the city. In 2017 92% felt safe but by 2023 less than half of Olympians (47%) said that they feel safe. That is a 46% increase in the percentage of respondents who say they are concerned about their safety.
By comparison against residents of Tacoma, Olympia’s decline in the perception of safety has been dramatic. In 2017, twice as many Tacoma residents felt unsafe (15%) as did Olympians (8%). But the most recent surveys show that a majority of Olympians feel unsafe (53%) while a majority of Tacoma residents feel safe (72%)
|
In general, how safe do you feel in Olympia? |
2017 |
2021 |
2023 |
Change 2017 to 2023 |
Change 2021 to 2023 |
|
Safe Olympia |
92% |
53% |
46% |
-46% |
-7% |
|
Unsafe Olympia |
8% |
46% |
53% |
45% |
7% |
|
Safe Tacoma |
85% |
83% |
72% |
-13% |
-11% |
|
Unsafe Tacoma |
15% |
17% |
28% |
13% |
11% |
(Comparable Tacoma surveys of 2018, 2020 and 2022)
When focused on the downtown, the public feels even less safe, especially at night. When asked, “In general, how safe do you feel in Downtown during the night?” 82% reported feeling unsafe in 2023. By comparison, asking about downtown safety during the day, 44% reported feeling unsafe in 2023.
|
In general, how safe do you feel in Downtown? |
2017 |
2021 |
2023 |
Change 2017 to 2023 |
Change 2021 to 2023 |
|
Safe Daytime |
78% |
59% |
55% |
-23% |
-4% |
|
Unsafe Daytime |
23% |
41% |
44% |
21% |
3% |
|
Safe Night Time |
37% |
24% |
18% |
-19% |
-6% |
|
Unsafe Night Time |
61% |
77% |
82% |
21% |
5% |
Big decline in Olympia being a good place to raise a family or retire
There has been a significant increase in negative opinions about whether Olympia is a good place to raise a family or retire. In 2021 a bare majority, 52% said that they were satisfied with Olympia as “a place to raise a family”. But in 2023, only 38% did, a 14-point drop. Worse, the share of “dissatisfied” jumped 16 points from 28% to 44% dissatisfied.
|
Olympia as a Place to Raise a Family |
2021 |
2023 |
Change |
|
Very or Somewhat Satisfied |
52% |
38% |
-14% |
|
Very or Somewhat Dissatisfied |
28% |
44% |
+16% |
Satisfaction with Olympia as a place for retirement decreased by 11% in 2023 compared to 2021. The percentage dissatisfied increased by 13%.
|
Olympia as a Place to Retire |
2021 |
2023 |
Change |
|
Very or Somewhat Satisfied |
41% |
32% |
-11% |
|
Very or Somewhat Dissatisfied |
33% |
46% |
+13% |
Is Olympia unusual or are these data part of a trend?
While the most recent survey couches the increased “…pessimism about Olympia’s future” as being consistent with a general sense of pessimism felt by many Americans’ feelings about the country as a whole, it is not broadly reflective of trends in attitudes about local government.
According to Pew Research, two-thirds of Americans have a favorable view of their local governments (66%) with only a slight decline since August of 2019 (69%).
While the City of Seattle has experienced similar public sentiments as Olympia, many other cities for which a survey can be found on the internet have a different story both in terms of either the starting point or trends. In comparison to Olympia’s 30% wrong direction:
In comparison to Olympia’s drop from 92% in 2017 positive rating as a place to live to 53% in 2023 …
14 comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here
psterry
The mirror is up. Will the City Council look in it? How will the voters of Olympia judge what they see?
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
TheVirtualOne
Agreed. This is a direct reflection and result of the lack of will, no leadership, and inaction in Olympia’s elected officials. The citizens of Olympia are tired of excuses and want action and change. Clean up this town and quit blaming the lack of results on others. Take responsibility and be accountable!
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
KarenM
The statement by the City Manager lists many things the city is working on. He proceeds to take the survey results as an endorsement of everything the city is doing. I didn't see it that way. Economic development, for example, rated much lower than other concerns in the results. The city got funding during the pandemic to do economic development to help struggling businesses. Those programs don't necessarily need to continue with city funding.
I DO want the city to keep up with the areas where people didn't show concern. Parks and trails, for example are very important for quality of life here. Public safety is important for quality of life. It is important to keep our roads safe so that people are not injured or killed when they walk or cycle or drive their car.
I wonder if the city is trying to do too much by including economic development as part of the mission. The city should do a great job at the things only a city government can do. That will help our local residents and our local economy. The best thing the city can do for economic development downtown is to figure out safe places for unhoused people to sleep and spend their time.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
chezeve
I’m surprised the critical issue of infrastructure was not addressed. . The increasing problems of traffic along the 1-5 corridor is a huge part of my increasing dissatisfaction with quality of life issues for this area along with homeless camps everywhere & the uptick in crime. Throughout the Lacey/ Olympia areas are major chokeholds of traffic that just gets worse year after year. We’ve been here for 27 years. Urban growth areas like Lacey has gone downhill since completion of the Marvin/ Martin overpass which was supposed to decrease congestion. It’s only done the opposite. Lacey now has consistent backups on Martin/ Marvin, Pacific/ 512 , Nisqually exit & Marvin/Steilacoom with I-5 overflows that has impeded traffic for hours especially during the weekends. It’s become horrible . Now the Lacey Board of Commissioners are considering the proposal to add 2 new residential properties by DH Horton for over 400 new apartments & homes! The only road consideration I’ve read about are roundabouts. The quality of life issues that drew folks to the area are diminishing quickly.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
YurmaZahow
This survey is a damning indictment of how our city is being run. Olympia used to be such a nice place to live, and six short years of Uber-liberal governance have run it into the ground. Businesses don't want to be downtown, and people don't want to go downtown. Law enforcement is virtually nonexistent, and criminals have free run of the city to rob, steal, burglarize, and commit violent crimes, essentially unchecked. Meanwhile, our elected officials look on and smile, proud of the work they have done.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
HappyOlympian
City council needs to take the credit for our decline, and they should force police need to aggressively enforce the law. Free transit contributing to the problem, could be time to return to charging folks to ride while subsidizing some local residents, buses often carrying broken and ravaged riders whom discourage productive elements of society from making use of the system.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
Citizen
This survey lacks sufficient information to be informative on issues that matter. For example, how do residents rate traffic congestion, availability of clean, safe, & frequent mass transit, & buses to downtown Tacoma or Seattle, failure to require builders to build sufficient parking spaces for new developments, cost of housing (purchases and rentals), living wage jobs, accessibility to medical services ( wait time for appointments, quality & cost of care), cleanliness of city sidewalks and streets, condition of streets (potholes, maintenance, landscaping), downtown merchants struggling with lack of police and shoppers, quality of schools, homeless camps, on and on.
Satisfaction surveys without underlying data explaining the reasons for satisfaction / dissatisfaction leave me wondering what the surveys are based on.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
SecondOtter
Crime is the number one issue. A few weeks ago, friends of mine were sitting on their boat at the Swantown marina and could see the parking lot. They witnessed..in broad daylight, a pair of thieves breaking into a car. They called the Oly police and got...crickets. No response. The pair then broke into a second car and again, my friends called the police with no response. When the pair then broke into a pickup truck and began to try to steal it, the police FINALLY responded. I believe they arrested the two and probably released them that day.
When you talk to the vendors at the farmer's market, they all have stories of thieves vandalizing their booths. Some places in town there are more needles than weeds. There used to be a medical outreach clinic right across the street from the Bus Transit Center...and Providence shut it down because so many of their staff (most of whom were volunteers,) were being threatened, accosted or robbed. There used to be a neato bike shop, kitty corner from the same Transit station, and the man finally shut down the business because of so much theft. People would literally steal the bikes from in front of the shop.
Yes, I hear it...homelessness is not a crime. But the activities of those homeless people are often criminal in nature and that IS a crime.
The other problem is that Olympia simply cannot understand that people want to shop downtown, but hate having to pay for parking. Parking meters are increasingly expensive and universally loathed. Small businesses are being throttled to death. Oly City Council seems to think that the small business man or woman has the deep pockets of Amazon.
Then consider that the OCC really tried to make it so that developers could get away with not putting in any parking spaces for people living in their expensive new high rises. REALLY? Social engineering doesn't work, Olympia.
So much of OLy's emphasis seems to be focused on the homeless, but it's coming at the expense of those of us who really would like to have Olympia the nice, cool place it used to be. More policing, and less taxation on small business is the best way to turn things around.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
TonyW33
The article is true and accurate and the comments incredible astute and informative, yet the voters in Olympia continue to re-elect these ultra liberal know nothings. These issues rests with the electorate. Only one survey matters. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
JW
Only a sleazy politician could look hard, contradictory data in the face and then draw the opposite conclusion in order to protect their reputation and work history. Unbelievable. The city council is running this city into the ground. Although the elected members are merely an extension of the voting majority, so it's the majority of your neighbors running this city into the ground with their idiotic and demented voting patterns.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
StreetCleaner
Isn't 531 surveyed like less than 1% of pop (56,100)? 10% is generally the max for surveys. Seems a bit low for meaningful measure of an entire city or should be taken with a grain of salt.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
RobRichards
Looks like about 500 people did the survey. And there doesn't seem to be a way to know where they live. So, they're not necessarily Olympia residents. If 70% of Olympians thought we were on the wrong track, we'd see a clean sweep of incumbents - we've seen it before, during the isthmus fight for example - but instead, we have two incumbents who didn't get a single opponent, and one council member likely to be elected Mayor. Something doesn't add up here.
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
Larry Dzieza
A couple of commentators raised the issue of who was polled and if they were from Olympia. According to the City's website and their consultants they were taken from voter files, so that is a pretty good verification of where they are from. The survey also broke down what part of Olympia the responses were from.
Here is the link (you will need to cut and paste ) to the more detailed survey... https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fJTi5Mq0Xr2kewj3IO43vLOLFv0-3fMMDUcEqyPg6dA/edit#slide=id.g1d7047c634f_2_131
And here is what it says about the methodology. The 500+ sample size brings you about a 5.5 point plus or minus accuracy.
"On behalf of the City of Olympia, Embold Research surveyed 531 adults living in Olympia, WA from May 1-8, 2023.
The following sources were used to recruit participants:
Targeted advertisements on Facebook and Instagram
Text messages sent, via the Switchboard platform, to cell phone numbers listed on the voter file for individuals who qualified for the survey’s sample universe, based on their voter file data
Regardless of which of these sources a respondent came from, they were directed to a survey hosted on SurveyMonkey’s website.
Post-stratification was performed on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education and homeowner status. Weighting parameters were based on demographic breakdowns from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).
The modeled margin of error for this survey is 5.5%. Modeled margin of error uses effective sample sizes that adjust for the design effect of weighting."
Tuesday, July 25 Report this
MHoraney
Danny,
Pls come back and add the size of the sample studied by Embold.
You can NEVER go wrong by including the sample size.
But you know this!
It is basic information that provides context for the information.
It helps readers determine if the survey is valid.
Leaving it out makes the entire survey and the reporting on it seem fishy.
Here's the info from the survey's *executive summary* - not the JOLT article, not even the city manager's blog:
"Executive Summary: Public Opinion Executive Summary
** Page 3: Methodology Description
Embold Research surveyed 531 residents of Olympia, WA from May 1-8, 2023."
And check this to learn more about how sample sizes are determined:
Journal of Applied Structural Equation Modeling
SAMPLE SIZE FOR SURVEY RESEARCH: REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS
eISSN: 2590-4221 Journal of Applied Structural Equation Modeling: 4(2), i-xx, June 2020
Tuesday, July 25 Report this