The City Controller’s Office just issued their 352 page 2011 City Survey. The survey was administered to a random sample of 3,979 San Francisco residents. The City Survey asked respondents to grade the overall job of local government in providing services from Muni to libraries and parks. The purpose of the survey was to measure satisfaction with the city’s delivery of various City services and to help determine priorities for improving services in San Francisco.

San Franciscan Satisfaction With Government Hits An All-Time Low

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Since 2004, our city government’s performance rating has increased each year. However, this year for the first time the rating decreased — from 43% in 2009 to 34% in 2011.

According to the Controller’s survey, 34% of respondents gave the overall performance of local government a favorable rating of “good” or “excellent” while 15% gave an unfavorable rating of “poor” or “failing,” with 50% providing a rating of “average.”

The percentage of San Franciscans who gave local government a favorable rating this year is down from 43% in 2009. The drop in favorable rating for government is consistent with changing opinions about government generally. Similarly, ratings of the performance of local government by Californians declined 11% over the same period. A July study by USF’s Leo T. McCarthy Center showed San Francisco is the most negative Bay Area city when it comes to city residents’ outlook on local government.

We’ve highlighted some of the key findings in the survey, but you can read the entire survey results here. Stay tuned for additional stories on the survey findings.

Highest And Lowest Rated Areas Of City Services

The overall highest rated areas in the San Francisco City Survey 2011 were library services and parks. Conversely, the lowest rated areas were infrastructure and MUNI. The five highest and five lowest rated are listed below based on the percentage of respondents who rated them as “excellent” or “good.”

Highest Rated Areas

• How safe residents feel when walking alone in their neighborhood

• The quality of assistance provided by library staff

• The collections of books and tapes at libraries

• Overall quality of schools

• Quality of park grounds

Lowest Rated Services

• Condition of pavement of streets citywide

• Cleanliness of MUNI buses

• Cleanliness of sidewalks citywide

• How well MUNI communicates with passengers

• Cleanliness of streets citywide

Stay tuned for more articles about the San Francisco City Survey. You can read the results for yourself here.