Wauwatosa residents report high satisfaction in 2024 survey; traffic, redevelopment and housing emerge as priorities

Wauwatosa Common Council on Tuesday heard results of the city—s 2024 community survey from Jason Marado, vice president and director of community research at ETC Institute, who said the mail-and-online survey gathered 507 completed responses between late April and mid-May and carries a margin of error of B1 4.3 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

The presenter said 88% of respondents reported they were —very satisfied— or —satisfied— with Wauwatosa as a place to live and that the city rated above regional and national averages in most categories. "You rated 32 percentage points above the U.S. average" on overall quality of city services, Marado told the council, and the city scored significantly higher than the U.S. average in 43 of 51 benchmarked areas.

Despite broadly positive results, Marado highlighted several areas that emerged as community priorities because of a combination of importance and lower satisfaction scores. "The top overall priorities are managing and planning redevelopment, traffic flow and congestion, enforcing traffic laws, [the] condition of major city streets, and overall efforts to prevent crime," he said. The survey also showed notable declines since 2019 in satisfaction with affordable housing and, to a lesser extent, planning and managing redevelopment and enforcing traffic laws.

Marado described strong performance in several service lines: about 81% of respondents were satisfied with the overall quality of city services, and satisfaction with trash, solid waste and recycling services approached 90%. Communications metrics (availability of information, website, social media and timeliness) also scored well compared with other communities.

Council members asked follow-up questions about geographic detail and timing. Alder First asked whether dissatisfaction could be broken down by neighborhood; Marado said ETC produced maps by census block group for roughly 100 survey questions and that those maps were included in an appendix. "We created a map like that for every question on the survey asked on a five-point scale," he said. Staff later confirmed the appendix file was not attached to the meeting packet but would be uploaded and emailed to council the following day.

Several council members linked survey results to local context. Alder Lewis suggested higher concern about traffic may reflect Wauwatosa—s daytime population and recent debates over local development projects such as proposals in the village and at St. Bernard—s, a timing Marado acknowledged overlapped with the survey window. Mayor Bridal noted a regional analysis by the Wisconsin Policy Forum showing Wauwatosa among the better-ranked communities for street condition, and he urged the council to probe why perceptions differ from comparative data.

Marado also announced that Wauwatosa had been awarded ETC Institute—s "Leading the Way" award, granted to communities that rank in the top 10% nationally across three core areas (overall quality of city services; value received for city taxes and fees; and customer service provided by city employees). "In order to win this award, you have to rate in the top 10% in the country in all three areas," he said.

City officials said they plan to use the survey results in upcoming budget and capital-plan discussions, focusing attention on a small set of lower-performing items while continuing work on the many service areas that surveyed residents rated highly. Staff will provide the detailed maps and full appendix to council members for further review.

The council received the presentation and adjourned after thanking the presenter and staff. The appendix maps and materials were to be uploaded to the meeting packet and distributed to members the next day.