Survey says... crime tops Houstonians' concerns

For the past 25 years, the Houston Area Survey, directed by Rice University Sociology Professor Stephen Klineberg, has been offering a timely window into the minds of Houstonians. The recently completed 2007 survey especially shows how Houston's attitudes reflect the changes in our post-Katrina city.

This year, crime was the number one worry for Houston residents, but immigration is a fast-growing concern. For the second year, the number of people who believe that the racial diversity brought on by immigration is a bad thing has risen. However, the survey found respondents in favor of helping the immigrants who are already here. Klineberg believes that Katrina was a trigger for Houston, but that these numbers also reflect national concerns over illegal immigration. When asked specifically about Katrina in 2005, 97% of Houstonians were pleased with our city's response to the disaster. This year, nearly two-thirds believed that Katrina had a negative impact on the city.

Overall, the survey reflected positive attitudes toward Houston, with the number of people who called the job opportunities "excellent" or "good" steadily going up, and more than 80% rated the Houston metro area a better or much better place to live than other metro areas in the country. Concerns about health care, poverty, and the environment are still on the rise.

Houston is the only major American city that has been the focus of such a long-term research project. It documents Houston's transition from an oil town to a grown-up metropolis and exemplifies the perpetual socioeconomic and demographic changes in our lovely city. A very current PowerPoint that synthesizes and analyzes information from surveys from 1982 to 2007 can be found here.