Citizen Satisfaction with Urban Services: Potential Misuse as a Performance Indicator

Sample surveys of citizens provide a potentially important method of collecting data for local policy analysis. Several Urban Institute publications have recommended that local governments annually conduct citizen surveys to aid in evaluating city services.' Local officials will probably collect information on citizen satisfaction with city services as part of such surveys. A danger arises that policy makers may misinterpret such information, especially if they use citizen satisfaction to measure service performance. This danger stems from two problems: 1) citizen responses to satisfaction and evaluation questions may not reflect actual service performance, and 2) difficult statistical and conceptual problems complicate the use of subjective data to evaluate service performance. Before examining these two problems, picture how local officials might use information about citizen satisfaction with a particular local service. Policy makers might compare satisfaction levels in different geographic areas, conclude that areas reporting lower overall satisfaction receive poorer quality service, and perhaps even reallocate expenditures accordingly.2 Similarly, policy makers might compare satisfaction expressed by different types of citizens, such as citizens from different demographic groups, to investigate whether one type receives better service than another. Although such procedures may seem sensible, in general they are invalid and potentially misleading.