ARTICLE
Santa Cruz County residents told national pollsters that the quality of life here is great – a least when compared to how residents of the rest of the country perceive their communities. The Gallup–Healthway Well-Being Index for 2016 rated overall quality-of-life factors in the Santa Cruz—Watsonville MSA third highest in the United States. The nationwide survey, conducted over the last two years, included an average of 500 phone interviews each day, 350 days per year, with residents throughout the U.S. The Index, developed over the last decade using models and techniques developed by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and U. Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener among others, melds survey respondents’ opinions and judgments with their more immediate senses and feelings. This comparison of judgments and perceptions (in Kahneman’s words, Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow) has been found to provide more accurate analyses, in this case of communities’ sense of well-being. The findings suggest that, in comparison to other communities in the U.S., Santa Cruz residents are quite satisfied with the local quality of life, evaluated using the five factors of the Gallup-Healthyway index of community well-being. Gallup-Healthways 2016 Community Well-Being Index This annual report, based upon Gallup and Healthways research, considers five elements of well-being: • Sense of purpose • Social relationships • Financial security • Relationship to community • Physical health Based upon telephone interviews with more than 350,000 U.S. residents over the two-year period, the results evaluate each respondent’s cognitive beliefs about their community and each respondent’s affective reactions – their feelings – about recent experiences in their community. The survey’s results, inspired by the research of Kahneman and his colleagues, tempers “hardened” beliefs with more spontaneous perceptions. These perception questions inquire about the respondent’s enjoyment, happiness, stress, or anger related to experiences of the past 24 hours. A separate report describes in more detail Gallup’s methodology and underlying theories of the study. The analysis consolidates rankings in each of the five areas (purpose, social, finance, community, and physical) and then consolidates them for an overall ranking. Included in the study are questions designed to elicit respondents’ perceptions of: • their overall quality of life • their daily affect (positive and negative experiences and emotions) • their access to essentials (including access to food, shelter, and healthcare) • their safety (access to a good place to live, with low fear of crime) • their physical health (including disease burden and short-term illnesses) • their family economics (perception of standard of living), and • their work (satisfaction and a quality workplace) It is not surprising that four other cities visited in the Santa Cruz Chamber’s annual Community Leadership Visit (CLV) over the last five years are also among the top 12 cities in the U.S. In addition to Santa Cruz-Watsonville (3), included in the top dozen Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are the CLV-cities of San Luis Obispo (7th), Boulder (10th), Ft. Collins (11th), and Santa Barbara (12th). These results suggest the question, “What do we have in common with these communities that make them and Santa Cruz County a desirable place to live?” Each has a top-flight university. Each is a tourist destination and is located in a beautiful environmental setting. With the exception of Boulder, each has a significant agricultural industry segment. (The Boulder organic farmers might argue that they should also be included.) Each has a significant tech industry. Each has a high level of participation in active lifestyle activities. With the exception of Fort Collins, each has a relatively high number of baby boomers and retirees. With the exception of Boulder each has a large Hispanic population and English-as-a-second-language school populations. However, most strikingly, with the exception of Fort Collins, each has largely unaffordable housing – topped by Santa Cruz as least affordable. OBSERVATIONS AND QUESTIONS REGARDING LOCAL RESULTS IN THE FIVE RANKING AREAS: Sense of Purpose: One of the most interesting elements of the survey is inquiry about residents’ sense of value and purpose in their lives. One of the most engaging parts of Santa Cruz is..., well, our “engagement.” To be glib, we live in a community in which most of us find it to be worth getting out of bed. For some it is for work, for some recreation, for others it is education, or art, or surfing, or friends and family, or... But, for most we feel a purpose in what we do that motivates us. How can the Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA use this high ‘sense of purpose’ as a workforce attractor? Surely purposefulness is both a core characteristic of the kinds of workers we would like recruit and a community characteristic attractive to those workers. After all, we rank 6th in purposefulness... San Jose-Sunnyvale is 82nd. Social Relationships: The ability to connect with others in meaningful ways is a fundamental element of well-being. While this was Santa Cruz-Watsonville’s lowest national ranking category – 20th of he 189 MSAs reported – social relationships are certainly accessible to those seeking them on topics from politics and environmentalism to Frisbee golf and mushrooms. Surprisingly, only four of the top forty “social” communities was located in California and every community in the top ten social communities is on the east coast. Are there conditions that threaten our social “connectivity?” We suggest two: First, the affordability of meeting space which has increased the cost of participation from breakfast meetings to shared art studios. Second, exclusion and stridency that results from the inconveniences of growing populations in a finite space. Financial Security: These questions ask respondents’ about how comfortable they are with their current level of financial security and their confidence in their future prospects. This is something more than the amount of income and wealth. It reflects both respondents’ expectations regarding living standards, their financial capacity to meet their immediate wants and needs, and their median age... Santa Cruz apparently excels in all. How do we reconcile this with our extraordinarily high cost of housing and relatively lower income levels earned by Santa Cruz-Watsonville residents compared to workers over the hill? Notwithstanding these burdens Santa Cruz ranks 7th in financial security while San Jose ranks 12th. (And, unlike Santa Cruz, San Jose is not consistently in the top five least affordable MSAs in the U.S.). Perhaps this relates to different quality-of-life expectations, the physical environment in general, and/or our tolerance for less long-term financial security. Relationship to Community: This set of questions focuses on infrastructure, access to services, and resources provided by each community. These relate to community issues such as public safety, clean water, efficient transportation, public education, and similar core needs. It also presumably considers amenities such as parks, bike and pedestrian ways, art, events and programs, and the other elements of the community that contribute to a sense of personal and community well-being. Santa Cruz—Watsonville ranks third in the country in this category. We tend to be critical of many of these elements in our community. Does the difference between our public discourse about community resources and our responses to surveyors’ questions reflect a difference between our reality and our aspirations? Or, is it a difference in “thinking fast/thinking slow... that is, between our long-held judgments about safety, quality of services, and well-being and our day-to-day experiences of living in Santa Cruz County? Physical Well-being: This question relates primarily to health and wellness. The study ranked Santa Cruz County fourth in the U.S. This is the least surprising result in the survey. The combination of a broad range of healthcare and wellness resources, a culture of active lifestyles, and an environment rich with exercise opportunities, health education resources, and meditative spaces makes Santa Cruz a healthy place to live that attractive people attentive to their health. This is true for nearly everyone likely to read this analysis. It is, however, less so or not true at all for other County residents – often served by an array of programs from the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County to United Way’s public health work. The results of their work are also reflected in the survey. Will we be able to sustain our collective investments these and other programs to insure and improve our community wellness in a time of change in health care funding and processes? HOW PRIDEFUL DARE WE BE We would have to bungle badly to fall out of the top quintile in this study. Factors such as our physical environment, our proximity to Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area; UC Santa Cruz; solid and diverse core industries including agriculture, tourism, and burgeoning research and tech businesses; a diverse healthcare infrastructure; a vital arts community; hundreds of organizations and associations; and many other elements supporting well-being provide an extraordinary base. We also have a relatively stable population, notwithstanding the more transient nature of university students. And, compared to most other communities in the U.S., Santa Cruz County is a quite prosperous one. Collectively, those residents are by nature purposeful, social, financially stable, engaged in the community, and healthy. We should take pride as a community in our success and remain dedicated to continuing to improve the vitality of our community. While those core elements are likely to remain, our ongoing level of well-being depends upon attention to the many hundreds – or is thousands – of individual characteristics, investments, relationships, and programs the collectively define the quality of life in Santa Cruz County.
Santa Cruz County residents told national pollsters that the quality of life here is great – a least when compared to how residents of the rest of the country perceive their communities. The Gallup–Healthway Well-Being Index for 2016 rated overall quality-of-life factors in the Santa Cruz—Watsonville MSA third highest in the United States. The nationwide survey, conducted over the last two years, included an average of 500 phone interviews each day, 350 days per year, with residents throughout the U.S. The Index, developed over the last decade using models and techniques developed by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman and U. Illinois psychology professor Ed Diener among others, melds survey respondents’ opinions and judgments with their more immediate senses and feelings. This comparison of judgments and perceptions (in Kahneman’s words, Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow) has been found to provide more accurate analyses, in this case of communities’ sense of well-being. The findings suggest that, in comparison to other communities in the U.S., Santa Cruz residents are quite satisfied with the local quality of life, evaluated using the five factors of the Gallup-Healthyway index of community well-being.
Gallup-Healthways 2016 Community Well-Being Index This annual report, based upon Gallup and Healthways research, considers five elements of well-being: • Sense of purpose • Social relationships • Financial security • Relationship to community • Physical health Based upon telephone interviews with more than 350,000 U.S. residents over the two-year period, the results evaluate each respondent’s cognitive beliefs about their community and each respondent’s affective reactions – their feelings – about recent experiences in their community. The survey’s results, inspired by the research of Kahneman and his colleagues, tempers “hardened” beliefs with more spontaneous perceptions. These perception questions inquire about the respondent’s enjoyment, happiness, stress, or anger related to experiences of the past 24 hours. A separate report describes in more detail Gallup’s methodology and underlying theories of the study. The analysis consolidates rankings in each of the five areas (purpose, social, finance, community, and physical) and then consolidates them for an overall ranking. Included in the study are questions designed to elicit respondents’ perceptions of: • their overall quality of life • their daily affect (positive and negative experiences and emotions) • their access to essentials (including access to food, shelter, and healthcare) • their safety (access to a good place to live, with low fear of crime) • their physical health (including disease burden and short-term illnesses) • their family economics (perception of standard of living), and • their work (satisfaction and a quality workplace) It is not surprising that four other cities visited in the Santa Cruz Chamber’s annual Community Leadership Visit (CLV) over the last five years are also among the top 12 cities in the U.S. In addition to Santa Cruz-Watsonville (3), included in the top dozen Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) are the CLV-cities of San Luis Obispo (7th), Boulder (10th), Ft. Collins (11th), and Santa Barbara (12th).
These results suggest the question, “What do we have in common with these communities that make them and Santa Cruz County a desirable place to live?” Each has a top-flight university. Each is a tourist destination and is located in a beautiful environmental setting. With the exception of Boulder, each has a significant agricultural industry segment. (The Boulder organic farmers might argue that they should also be included.) Each has a significant tech industry. Each has a high level of participation in active lifestyle activities. With the exception of Fort Collins, each has a relatively high number of baby boomers and retirees. With the exception of Boulder each has a large Hispanic population and English-as-a-second-language school populations. However, most strikingly, with the exception of Fort Collins, each has largely unaffordable housing – topped by Santa Cruz as least affordable.
OBSERVATIONS AND QUESTIONS REGARDING LOCAL RESULTS IN THE FIVE RANKING AREAS:
Sense of Purpose: One of the most interesting elements of the survey is inquiry about residents’ sense of value and purpose in their lives. One of the most engaging parts of Santa Cruz is..., well, our “engagement.” To be glib, we live in a community in which most of us find it to be worth getting out of bed. For some it is for work, for some recreation, for others it is education, or art, or surfing, or friends and family, or... But, for most we feel a purpose in what we do that motivates us. How can the Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA use this high ‘sense of purpose’ as a workforce attractor? Surely purposefulness is both a core characteristic of the kinds of workers we would like recruit and a community characteristic attractive to those workers. After all, we rank 6th in purposefulness... San Jose-Sunnyvale is 82nd.
Social Relationships: The ability to connect with others in meaningful ways is a fundamental element of well-being. While this was Santa Cruz-Watsonville’s lowest national ranking category – 20th of he 189 MSAs reported – social relationships are certainly accessible to those seeking them on topics from politics and environmentalism to Frisbee golf and mushrooms. Surprisingly, only four of the top forty “social” communities was located in California and every community in the top ten social communities is on the east coast. Are there conditions that threaten our social “connectivity?” We suggest two: First, the affordability of meeting space which has increased the cost of participation from breakfast meetings to shared art studios. Second, exclusion and stridency that results from the inconveniences of growing populations in a finite space.
Financial Security: These questions ask respondents’ about how comfortable they are with their current level of financial security and their confidence in their future prospects. This is something more than the amount of income and wealth. It reflects both respondents’ expectations regarding living standards, their financial capacity to meet their immediate wants and needs, and their median age... Santa Cruz apparently excels in all. How do we reconcile this with our extraordinarily high cost of housing and relatively lower income levels earned by Santa Cruz-Watsonville residents compared to workers over the hill? Notwithstanding these burdens Santa Cruz ranks 7th in financial security while San Jose ranks 12th. (And, unlike Santa Cruz, San Jose is not consistently in the top five least affordable MSAs in the U.S.). Perhaps this relates to different quality-of-life expectations, the physical environment in general, and/or our tolerance for less long-term financial security.
Relationship to Community: This set of questions focuses on infrastructure, access to services, and resources provided by each community. These relate to community issues such as public safety, clean water, efficient transportation, public education, and similar core needs. It also presumably considers amenities such as parks, bike and pedestrian ways, art, events and programs, and the other elements of the community that contribute to a sense of personal and community well-being. Santa Cruz—Watsonville ranks third in the country in this category. We tend to be critical of many of these elements in our community. Does the difference between our public discourse about community resources and our responses to surveyors’ questions reflect a difference between our reality and our aspirations? Or, is it a difference in “thinking fast/thinking slow... that is, between our long-held judgments about safety, quality of services, and well-being and our day-to-day experiences of living in Santa Cruz County?
Physical Well-being: This question relates primarily to health and wellness. The study ranked Santa Cruz County fourth in the U.S. This is the least surprising result in the survey. The combination of a broad range of healthcare and wellness resources, a culture of active lifestyles, and an environment rich with exercise opportunities, health education resources, and meditative spaces makes Santa Cruz a healthy place to live that attractive people attentive to their health. This is true for nearly everyone likely to read this analysis. It is, however, less so or not true at all for other County residents – often served by an array of programs from the Health Improvement Partnership of Santa Cruz County to United Way’s public health work. The results of their work are also reflected in the survey. Will we be able to sustain our collective investments these and other programs to insure and improve our community wellness in a time of change in health care funding and processes? HOW PRIDEFUL DARE WE BE We would have to bungle badly to fall out of the top quintile in this study. Factors such as our physical environment, our proximity to Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area; UC Santa Cruz; solid and diverse core industries including agriculture, tourism, and burgeoning research and tech businesses; a diverse healthcare infrastructure; a vital arts community; hundreds of organizations and associations; and many other elements supporting well-being provide an extraordinary base. We also have a relatively stable population, notwithstanding the more transient nature of university students. And, compared to most other communities in the U.S., Santa Cruz County is a quite prosperous one. Collectively, those residents are by nature purposeful, social, financially stable, engaged in the community, and healthy. We should take pride as a community in our success and remain dedicated to continuing to improve the vitality of our community. While those core elements are likely to remain, our ongoing level of well-being depends upon attention to the many hundreds – or is thousands – of individual characteristics, investments, relationships, and programs the collectively define the quality of life in Santa Cruz County.