2025 DeSoto community survey: residents rate parks and libraries highly, cite streets and neighborhood maintenance as priorities
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Summary
ETC Institute presented results of a statistically valid survey (304 responses) showing strong satisfaction with parks, libraries and general quality of life, but consistent resident concerns over street condition, potholes, street lighting and property maintenance.
Consultant Ryan Murray of ETC Institute presented results of the 2025 City of DeSoto community survey, a statistically valid sample of 304 completed resident surveys drawn from roughly 21,000 households. The survey measured satisfaction and importance across city services and asked residents to rank priorities.
Overall findings show residents rate DeSoto positively for quality of life and neighborhood quality; library services and parks and recreation received strong satisfaction scores and high usage. However, repeated concerns surfaced about the condition of major and neighborhood streets, pothole repair and adequacy of street lighting. Enforcement of residential property maintenance was also a recurring theme during stakeholder outreach and comments.
Murray explained the survey methods (random sample, margin of error about ±6% at the 95% confidence level) and emphasized that perception‑based measures (for example, feeling safe walking at night) may diverge from crime statistics. The survey found residents more comfortable walking in their neighborhoods during the day than at night and indicated that visibility of police in neighborhoods is a concern for some respondents.
Parks, trails and library services had high support: the survey found 79% of respondents were very or somewhat supportive of additional park and trail development. Respondents also named grocery, pharmacy, restaurants and coffee shops as business types they would like to see more of in DeSoto.
Councilmembers asked for cross‑tabulations by age and geography and for text‑comment analysis (word clouds and themes). Murray said staff would provide cross‑tabs and theme summaries and that the city also ran an open online version of the survey that produced 72 additional responses; those open responses will be shared separately. Councilmembers noted interest in additional outreach to faith leaders and neighborhood groups to improve response rates and broaden input.
Murray recommended the city continue to track these metrics year over year to set priorities and measure progress.
