By Mayor Tim Busse
I love living in Bloomington and the 2024 National Community Survey™ results show I am in good company. When asked to rank Bloomington as a place to live, 89% of respondents rated our city as “excellent” or “good.” Overall quality of life here ranked highly too, with 84% of respondents saying it is “excellent” or “good.”
Bloomington residents also provided ratings higher than the national average for their community in both attracting, and valuing and respecting people from diverse backgrounds. This is exciting because it aligns with being a connected, welcoming community—a priority that is identified in our community-based strategic plan, Bloomington. Tomorrow. Together.
Being a healthy community is another priority residents identified in the BTT plan. This includes individual health, sustainability and safety initiatives. The survey shows that residents see safety as a key benefit of living in Bloomington. Approximately 9 in 10 respondents said they felt very or somewhat safe in their neighborhoods and in Bloomington’s commercial areas during the day. Similarly, 8 in 10 respondents reported feeling safe from violent crime and property crime.
The praise continued to flow for Bloomington’s drinking water. This year’s approval rating of 90% ranked Bloomington “much higher” than benchmarks comprised of resident feedback from more than 500 other communities nationwide.
More highlights
The number of survey respondents calling the value of services for taxes paid “excellent” or “good” increased by 7% since 2023.
About 9 in 10 residents positively rated the overall quality of maintenance at their local park.
A majority of residents consider the Bloomington Briefing a top source of information about the city.
Availability of affordable quality housing, affordable mental health care and preventive health services were cited as areas for improvement.
Last year was the 13th consecutive year that we conducted the National Community Survey™ in Bloomington. The City will work with Polco/National Research Center to administer the survey again in 2025.
For more information and survey results, visit the City’s website at blm.mn/survey.
