Survey Says

What the DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey says about New Haven

The DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey is one of the largest of its kind, providing in-depth data about how residents in our region feel about where they live. The Foundation, nonprofits, government agencies, and many others use this data to identify needs and opportunities throughout Greater New Haven. The Community Foundation is a core partner with DataHaven and funder of this work. Below is an analysis of the 2018 Survey results for New Haven.

By APARNA NATHAN & MARK ABRAHAM | Apr 12, 2019:

New Haven is a magnet for development these days. Apartment buildings and hotels rise downtown, and old buildings are renovated into new housing. The rate of violent crime is dropping, and over the past three months alone, over $50 million in venture capital flowed into local companies, representing more than half of the statewide total.

But the views of New Haveners over the past three years are more mixed. While residents feel safer and give higher marks to the police department than they did three years ago, in other ways, life in the Elm City is getting tougher: Money is increasingly tight, health disparities persist, and adults are growing more anxious.

These are just a few of the findings of the 2018 DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey, a major statewide undertakingthat asked 16,043 randomly-selected adults throughout Connecticut, including 1,001 city residents, in-depth questions about their employment, health, neighborhood safety, and overall life satisfaction between March and December 2018. As with other large public surveys, responses are statistically weighted to ensure they are representative of the total adult population. Combined with the first two iterations of the survey in 2012 and 2015, the data capture some less positive trends that in many ways mirror statewide shifts. But New Haven residents also recognize that their city is steadily improving — a quality that makes the city stand apart from the rest of the state. Continue reading on the New Haven Independent.