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User Guide to The National Citizen SurveyT" <br />Community Livability Report <br />Using the model of the eight facets of community livability within the three pillars of community, The <br />NCS Community Livability report is divided into seven sections: <br />• About <br />• Quality of Life <br />• Community Characteristics <br />• Governance <br />• Participation <br />• Special Topics <br />• Conclusions <br />About • This section provides background on The NCS and community livability with brief descriptions <br />of the survey methods. <br />Quality of Life • This section of the report highlights areas of community strength and challenge, as <br />well as identifying community characteristics most important to your residents' assessments of their <br />quality of life. A summary of benchmark comparisons is presented by the eight community livability <br />facets helping communities to focus on areas that may provide "bigger bang for your buck." <br />Community Characteristics • This section of the report describes residents' ratings of the <br />characteristics that make a community livable, attractive and a place where people want to be. <br />Governance • This section of the report evaluates how well the local government delivers services and <br />meets the needs and expectations of its residents. <br />Participation • This section of the report looks at how connected residents are to the community and <br />each other. <br />Special Topics • This section includes the custom or special questions you may have included on your <br />survey. <br />Conclusions • Your report ends with a summary of key findings. <br />For the most part, the "percent positive" is reported in the report's charts. The percent positive is the <br />combination of the top two most positive response options (i.e., "excellent" and "good," "very safe" and <br />"somewhat safe "). For question that ask about behavior (e.g., asked on a yes /no scale or frequency scale <br />like "never," "rarely," "sometimes," "usually," or "always ") we show a combination of responses that <br />reflects at least some behavior (e.g., percent "yes" or "always" and "usually "). <br />On many of the questions in the survey, respondents could answer "don't know," but these "don't know" <br />responses have been excluded from the analyses shown in the report. In other words, the tables and <br />charts display the responses from respondents who had an opinion about a specific item. Appendix A of <br />the Technical Appendices provides the complete set of survey frequencies, with and without "don't <br />know" responses. The User Guide section, Understanding Survey Research (starting on page 17) <br />describes how and why we remove the "don't know" responses from our analyses. <br />Most of the charts in your Community Livability report have been color -coded to indicate how your <br />results compare to national benchmarks, with individual survey items grouped within the eight facets of <br />Community Livability. At a glance, you can see how your results compare to not only each other, but to <br />7 <br />