Zen City presents Lewisville survey showing strong quality-of-life scores, flags recycling, housing and transit

At a city retreat, Josie Pirie of consulting firm Zen City presented the results of a representative community survey to Lewisville leaders and staff, saying the data will be used to inform next year's budget and civic engagement strategy.

"We find less than a 3% response rate on those traditional methods," Pirie said, urging the council to rely more on digital panels and listening tools to reach residents. She told the group that the survey included 540 valid responses and that 69% of respondents reported being very satisfied with overall quality of life; when combined with neutral answers, she said about 94% of residents were positive or neutral about the city's quality of life.

Why it matters: City staff said the survey is the first step in the budget process and can help leaders decide where to focus limited resources. Pirie recommended using the data to distinguish performance problems from perception gaps and to monitor change over time.

The presentation highlighted several strengths. Parks and recreational amenities earned over 90% positive-or-neutral responses; acceptance of residents from different backgrounds and access to health care and city services also outperformed national and cohort benchmarks, Pirie said. "For the city to be the go-to place of resident discourse is incredible," she added, noting that official channels and the Lewisville Police and Fire departments drove much of the conversation she analyzed.

At the same time, the survey identified areas for improvement. Zen City reported lower satisfaction on waste and recycling services (about 59% positive), availability of affordable housing and ease of getting around by public transportation. Council members raised questions about whether some negative perceptions reflect concentrated problems in particular neighborhoods rather than citywide declines.

"We had a changeover in Castle Hills to Republic," a staff member said in discussion, noting route changes and disruption that likely affected local responses on recycling. Council members asked Zen City to provide geographic cross-tabs to check whether negative responses were clustered in specific districts.

Public transit drew particular attention. Council members and staff discussed recent outreach by DCTA (the regional transit agency) and agreed city amplification of DCTA messaging could help. Pirie said Nextdoor interactions for Lewisville showed substantial growth (she reported about 25,000 interactions) and that the firm uses targeted digital ads and panels to ensure demographic representation. A council member noted that many residents may not understand how GoZone differs from ride-hailing services and recommended coordinated public education.

On methodology, Pirie said Zen City weights responses to better match the city's 18-plus population and runs nationwide benchmarking to create cohort comparisons. She described technical checks to prevent duplicate responses and said the firm can provide further breakdowns by age, income, ethnicity and, on request, geographic mapping of responses.

Council and staff took questions about timing, channel effects and whether the survey captured enough responses across demographic groups. Pirie said the firm aims for approximately 500 valid responses for statistical significance in this methodology and that some custom cross-tabulations were included in the appendix.

What happens next: Staff recommended picking one or two priority areas for focused action and tracking those measures year to year; council and Zen City agreed to supply additional cross-tabulations and geographic detail. The presentation concluded and the retreat recessed for a 12-minute break, with the council to reconvene afterward.