See the full 2024 results here 

Highest-performing areas:

• Safety
• Preservation of our natural areas and open space
• Park & Recreation opportunities and amenities
• More specifically, we saw substantial jumps in people’s perceptions in transit; feeling of safety from a flood, fire or other natural disaster; and yard waste pick up services. 

Lowest-performing areas:

• Affordable Housing
• Healthcare
• Cost of Living
• Education and childcare
• Continued concerns with traffic

Along with the standard questions, we opted to add six additional questions tailored for our community, shown on pages 29-31. Some interesting results from the customized questions include:

• Most residents (85%) indicate that they would strongly or somewhat support a new crossing over Oak Creek that would provide an alternate route between 89A and 179.
• Around 6 in 10 respondents indicated that they would strongly or somewhat support expanding electric vehicle charging stations at retail centers, businesses, parking lots, etc.
• 49% of residents reported that they would want tourism to have less of a role in Sedona’s economy, while 45% would like it to stay the same, and just 6% indicated that it should play more of a role. We asked the exact question in 2022 and the results are as follows: 62% wanted tourism to have less of a role, 35% wanted it to stay the same, and 3% wanted more. In just three years, residents’ approval rate of our current tourism numbers went up by 10%.
• In 2022, 52% of residents had read our Emergency Preparedness Guide; whereas in 2024, 57% read the guide. In 2022, 70% of residents had signed up for emergency alerts, which only rose 1% in 2024. This implies that resident sentiments are consistent and presents us with ample opportunities for growth.

See the full 2022 survey results here  

Areas of opportunity, meaning we are "performing" under the National Benchmark, include:

• Cost of living
• Affordable quality housing
• Public gathering places
• Well planned residential growth and overall quality of new developments
• Public transit
• Affordable high-speed internet access
• Affordable healthcare
• Quality child education and a place to raise children

Some fun facts include:

• Resident support of the expansion of bicycle and pedestrian paths
• Resident support of a robust transit system
• Residents feel safe
• The most important priority, by far, is the Natural Environment

Customized Questions

While most of the questions are standardized so that comparisons can be made to other communities’ answers, the City did have the opportunity to create custom questions. Here are the results of four customized questions:

There are many interesting results but some interesting tidbits include:

• Quality of life continues to be rated as excellent or good, in line with the national benchmark.
• Respondents generally feel Sedona is a safe place.
• Park and recreation opportunities rated as excellent or good, higher than the national benchmark. 
• More than 90 percent of respondents rated the natural environment, personal health and wellness, perceptions of resident’s neighborhood and perceptions of safety as positive.
• Less than 25 percent of respondents rated employment opportunities, cost of living, and affordable housing as positive.
• Survey results continue to show that quality child-care, traffic flow on major streets, and public transportation rated below the national benchmark.
• Survey respondents were asked about their support for the implementation of a robust transit system for locals and visitors and about 8 in 10 strongly or somewhat supported this proposal; further, about two-thirds of respondents also supported extending the transportation sales tax to support this endeavor.

Customized Questions

While most of the questions are standardized so that comparisons can be made to other communities’ answers, the City did have the opportunity to create custom questions. Here are two:

Why the survey is important

For City staff and City Councilors who hear lots of resident opinion and feedback on issues, it is important to have data from this random sample survey, so that more informed decisions can be made.  

Links to the survey and the results

To see what questions were asked, read a copy of the survey.

To see the complete overview of the results, read this Community Livability Report.

To see how residents’ perceptions compare to our previous community surveys and to see how residents’ answers compare to other cities in the United States, read this Trends Over Time document.

Here are some of the interesting results from the 2017 survey:

• Most respondents rate the quality of life in Sedona as excellent or good, which is on target with the national benchmark.
• Respondents generally feel Sedona is a safe place.
• Sedona rates particularly low as a place to raise children. Residents’ perception of Sedona as a place to raise children also went down from 2007 to 2017.
• Perceptions of local government are mostly lower than national benchmarks and trending equal to or lower compared to previous surveys. 
• More than 90 percent of respondents rated the natural environment, overall appearance, perceptions of resident’s neighborhood and perceptions of safety as good or excellent.
• Measures for overall ease of travel, ease of travel by public transit and car, availability of affordable quality housing, variety of housing options, cost of living and shopping and employment opportunities, among others, were less favorably rated and lower than comparison communities.

Customized questions

While most of the questions are standardized so that comparisons can be made to other communities’ answers, the City did have the opportunity to create custom questions.

One of these was: While the City is currently working on solutions to reduce traffic, please select up to two additional priorities you would want the City to invest in over the next few years. The answers respondents could choose from and the results are below: 

Links to the survey and the results

To see what questions were asked, read a copy of the survey.

To see the complete overview of the results, read this Community Livability Report.

To see how residents’ perceptions compare to our previous community surveys and to see how residents’ answers compare to other cities in the United States, read this Trends Over Time document.