At the Aug. 15 council retreat, the city received a presentation of its most recent National Community Survey (NCS) results from Grace Arneson, the project manager who ran the survey for Polco (the city’s survey vendor). Arneson described the survey instrument as a standardized tool used across jurisdictions and said Charlottesville’s 2025 administration provided trend data relative to the city’s 2022 results.

Polco’s presentation showed a number of positive items: the city scored above the national benchmark on overall quality of life items and on natural environment and arts and recreation. Arneson reported that “about 56% of residents rated the city treating residents with respect as excellent or good,” and that several measures of confidence in city services showed statistically significant increases since 2022.

At the same time, residents flagged mobility and affordability as areas needing attention. Mobility was the second‑most important facet residents asked the city to focus on over the next two years; specific items — ease of travel by car, ease of public parking and ease of travel by bicycle — fell at or below the national benchmark. Arneson said public transportation ease was rated lower than other modes, with roughly 27% rating ease of travel by public transit as excellent or good.

On affordability the survey found the availability of affordable, quality housing and child care among the lowest‑ranked items and showed declines in several economy‑related measures consistent with national trends since 2022. The survey also asked residents about their own outlook: a small share expected the local economy to positively affect their family over the next six months.

City staff said the full dataset, including demographic breakouts and the optional open‑participation results, would be made publicly available. Councilmembers pressed staff on language access for the survey and on whether the open‑participation (self‑selected) responses differed from the statistically representative sample; Polco said the two datasets are often used side‑by‑side and staff agreed to follow up with a comparison.