Nearly all surveyed residents continue to rate Upper Arlington as a good place to live, city staff told the council Tuesday, even as respondents raised concerns about taxes, housing costs and diversity.

The community survey presentation to the Upper Arlington City Council Monday night summarized results from a statistically representative sample of 674 completed questionnaires out of 2,000 mailed, a roughly 34% response rate. "Nearly all residents continue to rate UA as a great place to live both overall and generally speaking, as well as a place to raise children," Ori, the city’s survey presenter, told council.

The survey, conducted in late spring and early summer 2025, measured residents’ opinions on quality of life, municipal services, trust in officials and several high‑profile city topics. The nut graf: the results show high satisfaction with municipal services and a stronger sense of belonging compared with earlier surveys, while also identifying housing affordability and perceived lack of diversity as recurring concerns.

Most key service ratings were positive and in some cases improved since earlier surveys. Ori said the city’s overall quality rating rose to 95% reporting excellent or good (up from 93% in 2022 and 89% in 2017). Public safety and parks also rated highly. One notable jump was stormwater/drainage: 2022 responses rated that service ‘‘excellent or good’’ at about 67%; in 2025 that figure rose to about 79%.

The survey found trust in local officials is robust: roughly two‑thirds of respondents said they trust city government officials "a lot" or "a fair amount," a level Ori said is in line with national benchmarks. About half of respondents reported interacting with a city employee in the past year; 88% of those interactions were rated very or extremely satisfactory, a rise from 78% in 2022.

Housing questions were mixed but showed openness to some new housing types after respondents were shown short descriptions and sketches. According to Ori, roughly 60% of respondents supported allowing more accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in neighborhoods; support for duplexes along major streets was under 50%, and support for townhouses along major streets was lower still.

The new Bob Crane Community Center, which opened in April 2025, also received favorable marks: nearly half of respondents said they had been inside the facility and overall attitudes toward the center were ‘‘positive,’’ Ori said, with those who had direct experience rating it more favorably than those who had not.

Council members asked several follow‑ups about subgroup results and methodology. Councilmember Adams asked whether the age band 18–34 could be split into narrower groups to better understand why younger adults were less likely to say they would remain in UA over five years; Ori said the proportion of 18–34‑year‑olds in the sample (about 18%) limited the statistical power to subdivide that group further. "If we were to split that in half... I think we'd have not enough data to actually tease out differences," Ori said.

Vice President Klose and others pressed the presenter on how the city might act on results. Ori and staff said the report is meant to provide "breadcrumbs" for policy questions — for example, a sizable share of residents said they felt they did not have enough information to form an opinion about some housing options, a gap the city could address in master‑planning and public education.

Council members also asked about how opt‑in or convenience responses were handled. Ori said the city compared the representative mail survey with roughly 450–500 opt‑in online responses in an appendix; differences existed but were generally not large, and when they diverged the opt‑in responses tended to be more negative.

What councilmembers said matters: several elected officials praised the results as evidence the city’s long‑term civic efforts are working and urged staff to use the survey findings to target outreach — for instance, more information about housing options to the roughly 20% of respondents who said they felt they did not have enough information.

The full survey report, including cross‑tabulations by demographic group and an appendix comparing the representative and opt‑in samples, is available from city staff, who encouraged council and residents to read the complete document for the detailed charts and subgroup analyses.