Which Hampton Roads cities did residents rank highest and lowest in quality of life?
The perception Hampton Roads residents have about their quality of life varies widely depending on the city they call home. While nearly 90% of Virginia Beach residents ranked the quality of life as good or excellent, only 33% of Portsmouth residents reported the same.
The findings come from Old Dominion University’s 2021 Life in Hampton Roads survey, which found significant disparities across Hampton Roads.
More than a quarter of residents rated the quality of life as excellent in Virginia Beach and Suffolk, while fewer than 10% rated the quality of life as excellent in Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News. Portsmouth was the only city to receive a poor ranking in the double digits.
This year’s survey departed from previous years by not asking residents why they rated their city higher or lower. But the survey’s co-author said local leaders should take note of the very different assessments from each locality.
“A message political leaders can take from this survey would be to get out there and talk to their constituents about how the quality of life in their cities can be improved because it varies so vastly from city to city,” said Tancy Vandecar-Burdin, the director of ODU’s Social Science Research Center and co-author of the report.
The survey asked residents to rank their city’s quality of life as either excellent, good, fair, poor, or unsure. The highest and lowest rankings that respondents gave their cities are as follows:
Chesapeake: 17.8% ranked as excellent; 0.7% as poor.
Hampton: 9.9% ranked as excellent; 8.5% as poor.
Newport News: 4.1% ranked as excellent; 7.9% as poor.
Norfolk: 13.2% ranked as excellent; 6.2% as poor.
Portsmouth: 5.9% ranked as excellent; 15.7% as poor.
Suffolk: 28.6% ranked as excellent; 4.1% as poor.
Virginia Beach: 27.8% ranked as excellent; 0.8% as poor.
Where residents reside also affected their perception of the quality of life across all of Hampton Roads.
When asked how they would rate the regional quality of life, Hampton and Virginia Beach residents were the most likely to say it is either excellent or good (75% and 76%, respectively). Those who favorably ranked the quality of life in Hampton Roads also included 62% of Norfolk respondents, 66% of Chesapeake respondents, 68% of Suffolk respondents, 58% of Portsmouth respondents and 50% of Newport News respondents.
“There is considerable variation in the sociodemographic and socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhoods within each of the cities of Hampton Roads and likely in the perceived quality of life across residents within each of the cities,” the survey found.
The percent of residents who rated the overall quality of life as good or excellent in Hampton Roads has declined over the last five years, from 71% in 2017 to 65% in 2021, the survey found. In the 2021 survey, 28% of residents ranked the quality of life in Hampton Roads as fair and 4% ranked it as poor.
Vandecar-Burdin said the coronavirus pandemic may be partly to blame for the decline.
“Over the past five years, we have seen a decline of quality of life. I would think COVID has impacted that,” said Vandecar-Burdin.
Even in cities where the majority of residents did not rank the quality of life as good or excellent, respondents tended to view their individual neighborhoods in a more positive light, the survey found.
“Clearly, though, and in contrast to perception of their city or the region as a whole, respondents viewed their neighborhoods favorably,” the survey found. “When positive responses (good or excellent) are combined, well over half of residents across all cities rated the quality of life in their neighborhood positively.”
For instance, in Newport News, where roughly 50% of residents ranked the quality of life in their city as excellent or good, 58% of residents ranked their neighborhood the same.
For the report, ODU’s Social Science Research Center surveyed 796 individuals online and over the phone between July 12 and Oct. 3, 2021. The survey did not ask residents to explain their quality of life rankings this year due to the limitations of the mixed survey methods and an increased margin of error. But it did track respondent perceptions of the overall economy, education, employment, government, healthcare and police.
ODU will release additional reports each Monday that detail those findings. The complete survey can be found on ODU’s Social Science Research Center website.
Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com
