The NCS Report - Charlottesville, VA 2022 - Flipbook - Page 10
Balancing performance and importance
Every jurisdiction must balance limited resources while meeting resident needs and striving to optimize community livability. To
this end, it is helpful to know what aspects of the community are most important to residents and which they perceive as being
of higher or lower quality. It is especially helpful to know when a facet of livability is considered of high importance but rated as
lower quality, as this should be a top priority to address.
To help guide City staff and officials with decisions on future resource allocation, resident ratings of the importance of services
were compared to their ratings of the quality of these services. To identify the services perceived by residents to have relatively
lower quality at the same time as relatively higher importance, all services were ranked from highest perceived quality to lowest
perceived quality and from highest perceived importance to lowest perceived importance. Some services were in the top half of
both lists (higher quality and higher importance); some were in the top half of one list but the bottom half of the other (higher
quality and lower importance or lower quality and higher importance); and some services were in the bottom half of both lists.
Services receiving quality ratings of excellent or good by 63% or more of respondents were considered of “higher quality” and
those with ratings lower than 63% were considered to be of “lower quality.” Services were classified as “more important” if they
were rated as essential or very important by 77% or more of respondents. Services were rated as “less important” if they
received a rating of less than 77%. This classification uses the median ratings for quality and importance to divide the services in
half.
The quadrants in the figure below show which community facets were given higher or lower importance ratings (right-left) and
which had higher or lower quality ratings (up-down). Facets of livability falling closer to a diagonal line from the lower left to the
upper right are those where performance ratings are more commensurate with resident priorities. Facets scoring closest to the
lower right hand corner of the matrix ( higher in importance and lower in quality) are those that may warrant further
investigation to see if changes to their delivery are necessary to improve their performance. This is the key part of this chart on
which to focus. Facets falling in the top left hand corner of the chart (lower in importance but higher in quality) are areas where
performance may outscore resident priorities, and may be a consideration for lower resource allocation.
Health and wellness
80%
Education, arts, and culture
Natural environment
Parks and recreation
70%
Quality
Median
Utilities
60%
Economy
Safety
Inclusivity and engagement
50%
40%
Community design
Mobility
30%
Median
60%
70%
Importance
9
80%
90%