St. Louis Park Residents Love Living in Their City

People who live in St. Louis Park are really happy with their city compared to the ratings people in other Minnesota locations give their towns.

A citywide survey conducted this spring "took the temperature" of St. Louis Park residents. The poll was part of a city effort to track trends and check priorities. Mayor Jeff Jacobs and City Manager Tom Harmening were pleased with the results.

And they had plenty of reason to be. Survey firm Decision Resources told St. Louis Park officials that the ratings they found are among the highest they have seen in the many Twin Cities communities they have surveyed. A resounding 97% of residents rated the quality of life in St. Louis Park MN as excellent or good. About 95% of polled residents said they feel safe. About 89% rated city services as excellent or good. Only 4% of residents said they anticipated moving in the next five years.

When asked what serious issues face Saint Louis Park, 18% of residents cited Hennepin County's proposal to move a freight train line from Minneapolis to this city to make room for light rail. Just 8% cited high taxes and rising crime. And 12% said they did not see any serious issues facing the city. That "no issue" response is twice what is considered normal for a place like St. Louis Park, according to the survey company.

The city has lots of multifamily housing, and 28 percent of residents thought there were too many apartments and 21 percent said there were too many condos and townhouses. Harmening said proposals for more condo developments have withered as the economy has suffered. Jacobs agreed that the city needs to be careful not to overbuild multifamily housing, although he said the three light-rail stations that are proposed for his city may result in a push for higher-density housing in those locations.

"I think if you build multifamily housing, you need to make sure it's high-quality construction so people want to live there in the future," he said.

The survey was conducted by telephone with 400 randomly selected households between April 17 and May 19. The average age of people who took the survey was 50.6 years. Median residency in the city was 16.2 years. About 65% of the people surveyed owned their residence.

Read the Star Tribune article or view the results of the survey in PDF form (scroll down to section titled "Summary Findings").