Kansas City Community Survey
Consulting Report
This report presents the results of consulting work done to support an innovative community-based survey project conducted in Kansas City, Missouri, that, among other things, sought to understand residents’ perceptions of neighborhood safety, collective efficacy, and police-community relations. The project represents a significant methodological advancement in community research by employing community members as interviewers to reach populations typically underrepresented in traditional municipal surveys. Indeed, the Kansas City Community Survey emerged from recognition of a critical gap in municipal research: traditional survey methods might fail to effectively capture the voices and experiences of residents in high-crime neighborhoods who may be most affected by public safety policies but least likely to participate in conventional data collection efforts.
Our role was to support the Principal Investigator, Dr. Marijana Kotlaja, in designing the survey instrument and applying advanced analytical techniques in her effort to thoughtfully combine community-engaged methodology with analytical and methodological sophistication in order to produce both methodological innovation and substantive insights into neighborhood social processes.