By Samuel Myers
Prepared for the CIVITAS Fall 2011 Newsletter
The NYU Wagner team presents Community Engagement Survey results.
CIVITAS capped off the 2011 Community Engagement Survey with an April forum at the Museum of the City of New York. We embarked on the project with New York University’s Robert Wagner School of Public Service to determine the concerns and needs of the Upper East Side and East Harlem communities. The project coincided with the CIVITAS thirtieth anniversary and was intended to get feedback on the greatest concerns of the communities we serve. As Executive Director Hunter Armstrong was quoted in a July issue of Our Town, “As an organization focusing on quality of life initiatives, we’re always reaching out to the community to gauge [its] needs and interests.”
Surveys were conducted on the internet, over the phone, and on the street at points across the East Side, including La Marqueta, Carl Schurz Park and the Institute for Puerto Rican and Hispanic Elderly. More than 400 neighbors responded, resulting in a representative sample for both neighborhoods. Befitting the similarities and differences in the Upper East Side and East Harlem, the results reflected the characteristics and concerns of their communities.
Hot-button topics like bicycle lanes, access to open space and the waterfront, and the Second Avenue Subway construction generated impassioned comments. Public health, environmental, and aesthetic issues such as tree-plantings, sidewalk obstruction, and garbage collection were also major topics of discussion. Community members demonstrated profound awareness of the issues facing their neighborhoods and expressed a clear desire for proactive, responsive policies that take their civic concerns into account.
To announce the results and get more feedback on the project, CIVITAS and the NYU Wagner team presented findings at the April forum. After the formal presentation, the forum participants, who included community leaders from the Upper East Side and East Harlem, discussed the survey comments in breakout groups.
Results of the survey and the breakout groups have resulted in different approaches to CIVITAS’ current projects, as well as influenced the direction of future initiatives. Since the survey results covered a broad range of community concerns, the final report on the survey has also been shared with other groups addressing quality of life on the Upper East Side and East Harlem. The survey illustrated the great interest in the community for a vision for the East River Esplanade. This feedback resulted directly in our ideas competition and public outreach project, Reimagining the Waterfront. Further, the comments have been directly incorporated into our advocacy related to land use, streetscapes, transportation and environmental quality.
Find more information about the survey and report at: www.civitasnyc.org/publicneedssurvey
