A survey of city residents will seek to understand the wellbeing of local communities to ensure Sydney remains a sustainable, liveable, safe and culturally vibrant city.
Run every four years by the City of Sydney, the community wellbeing survey provides an in-depth picture of everyday life in the city and how it is evolving.
This information helps the City to understand the quality of life of our diverse residents and plan future services, programs and spaces to better meet the needs of everyone in our community.
It seeks feedback on multiple aspects of residents' wellbeing, such as health and safety, community engagement and support, access to recreation and arts activities, and economic resilience.
The questions will delve into the everyday lives of residents, with a focus on:
- access to and participation levels in recreation and arts activities
- community involvement and connectedness
- physical and non-physical health and safety
- access to and use of general living support services
- confidence in sourcing food and accommodation.
"Our residents are at the heart of our city, so it's important we hear from them on what we're doing well and what we can be doing more of so we can ensure they live in healthy, lively communities" the Lord Mayor said.
"I encourage everyone to complete the survey so we can focus our facilities and services to ensure we maintain the sense of community and connectedness that makes our city great."
After the last wellbeing survey in 2015, the City introduced a number of initiatives that directly responded to resident feedback.
In 2015, satisfaction with opportunities to participate in arts and cultural activities was lowest among Green Square residents in comparison to other local areas. The City has since opened a new $32 million community and cultural precinct in Green Square, which promises to invigorate the heart of this growing neighbourhood. The precinct features a creative centre, community shed, childcare centre, park and public artwork. The City also opened the Green Square library and plaza last month.
The 2015 survey also gauged the level of food insecurity in the city, which impacted around 17,000 of our residents. In response, the City backed the Sydney Food Business Incubator project to encourage disadvantaged community members to take an active role in supporting their access to healthy, nutritious food through training. It also supported the development of sustainable food-based social enterprises. The three-year pilot project is expected to launch in early 2019, and involves the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales, federal and state government and social enterprise sector partners.
The community wellbeing survey will be distributed to all City of Sydney households in November 2018 and is open to all residents aged over 15 years.
The survey is online at cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/wellbeing. The online survey is screen-reader accessible and also available in Chinese, Thai, Indonesian and Korean languages.
