Our City Survey

2022 Our City Survey Results

In 2022, the City of Hamilton conducted its third Our City Survey. The survey enables the City to better understand the needs and perceptions of Hamiltonians with respect to the performance of municipal services provided to the community, value for tax dollars as well as quality of life and well-being. One change for the 2022 survey is a shift to focus on resident perception (versus resident satisfaction) with City service delivery to help identify areas for improvement.

The 2022 City of Hamilton Our City Survey was conducted between November 1 and December 18, 2022 via two distinct survey methodologies:

• A random phone survey - Collected 1,052 completed surveys. The margin of error for the total phone sample of 1,052 is +/-3%, 19 out of 20 times.
• An open online survey - Allowed a broader audience to participate, received 2,500 responses. Under this open online format, a margin of error cannot be applied. 

Amid the challenges facing our community since the last Our City Survey undertaken in 2019, the survey, particularly via the random phone methodology, continues to find positive assessments in most areas. The online survey results are consistent with the expectation that self-selected methods report lower satisfaction rates than a random sample survey. Although the online survey supplements the phone survey, the results between the online survey and phone survey cannot be directly compared due to the differences in survey methodology, sample size, and respondent profile. Generally though, the distribution of the results between phone and online, followed similar patterns.

The trend of lower satisfaction in post-COVID surveys is observed, and the 2022 results are lower than in previous years in general. This trend is not however unique to the City of Hamilton, with a trend of lower satisfaction in post-COVID surveys being observed by other municipalities/cities in Canada.