Politics & Government

Survey Says Safety is an Issue for Rockville Citizens

Biennial examination shows Rockville scores above the national norm by most measures.

Nine out of 10 Rockville residents say the quality of life in the city is high but the percentage of residents saying they feel safe after dark is below that of many jurisdictions nationally, according to a survey presented Monday to the Rockville City Council.

Conducted by the Colorado-based National Research Center, Inc., the survey asked 761 randomly selected Rockville residents about the quality of life, community amenities and programs and services offered by the city.

The survey was conducted by mail between September and November and included translations to Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Russian.

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NRC compares the city’s results against more than 360 other jurisdictions nationally that are in NRC’s database. The other jurisdictions are as small as 521 residents and as large as New York City, with more than 8 million residents.

While Rockville respondents said that overall they feel safe in and around the city, safety ratings are well below the national norm, according to the NRC report summarizing the survey's findings.

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Eighty-seven percent of respondents said they felt “very” or “reasonably” safe in their neighborhood during the day while 83 percent reported feeling safe "in business areas in Rockville during the day.” 

Sixty-five percent of respondents reported feeling “very” or “reasonably” safe or reasonably safe in their neighborhood after dark, up 11 percentage points from 2008. Fifty-six percent of respondents reported feeling safe in business areas after dark, up 7 percentage points from the 2008 survey.

The increases are significant, said Tom Miller, NRC’s president.

“Even though these ratings are below the benchmark, look at the percentage of folks who feel safe,” Miller told the council. “It’s very hard to imagine getting higher percentages than that.” 

The city rated above or much above the national norm on 42 of 57 “evaluative questions”—from the appearance of its parks to its building permitting process to its crime prevention efforts.

Rockville was in line with the national norm on nine measures, from the ease of travel by walking or biking, to its rating as a place to retire, to its it natural environment.

The city rated below or much below the norm in six categories, including the availability of affordable housing, drinking water quality and safety.

Among the results:

  • 93 percent of respondents said the “overall quality of life in the City of Rockville” was good or excellent.
  • 69 percent said "The City of Rockville government welcomes citizen involvement." Forty-nine percent said “The City of Rockville government listens to its residents." Both responses are "much above" the norm when compared to other jurisdictions, NRC said.
  • There were positive reviews of Rockville Town Center. Ninety-one percent of respondents rated "Maintenance of Rockville Town Center" as "excellent" or "good." Seventy-eight percent rated "restaurants and shopping opportunities in Town Center" as excellent or good. Ninety-three percent said they had visited Town Center in the past year and 23 percent had visited more than 26 times.

“Clearly safety and affordable housing stand out as our weaknesses,” Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio said.

She asked Miller if researchers got “a feel” for safety issues that city residents faced, saying that the council addresses pedestrian and bicycle safety, for example.

The survey asks people how safe they feel walking around during the day and at night, Miller said, adding that the surveys often raise more questions “about why, given that we now know what.”

“What is it that makes people feel less than safe? What kinds of things would make them feel more safe, might be something worth asking about in some structured conversations with residents,” he said.

New survey questions about growth in the past two years found that 55 percent of respondents felt the city’s population grew “somewhat too fast” or “too fast,” responses that were above the national norm. Meanwhile, 46 percent said the growth of housing was the “right amount.” Thirty-two percent answered “don’t know” to both of those growth questions.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said retail growth was the “right amount” as a much smaller proportion or Rockville residents felt retail growth was “too slow” than in other places around the country.

Sixty-eight percent of respondents said that job growth was “much too slow” or “somewhat too slow,” a much smaller proportion of residents than in other U.S. towns surveyed (though 47 percent of the overall sample answered “don’t know” and did not factor into the percentages in that question).

This is the sixth time NRC has conducted the survey. Previous surveys were conducted in 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008. The survey conducted in November 2008 sought to put the survey on a different biennial schedule so that results would arrive in time for budget deliberations.


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