Tampa Area Report Pt. 1

A Survey for the Pew Center for Civic Journalism 
Conducted By Princeton Survey Research Associates

The Tampa Area: Part One

CONTENTS
Highlights
This Survey
The State of The Community
Top Local Problems
Table 1: Most Important Local Issue
Top Local Problems: Growth, Traffic and Sprawl
The Daily Grind
Table 2: Reasons Traffic Congestion is a Tampa Problem
Table 3: Limit Growth?
Top Local Problems: Crime and Safety
Table 4: Feeling Safe
Detailed Findings: Race
Immigration
Differing Perspectives
Table 5: Agree That Institutions Are Fair
Neighborhood Diversity
[To Tampa Part Two >>]

Highlights

Tampa area residents enter the new century generally happy with their community, but a significant number worry that sprawl and traffic congestion could spoil what many feel is a good place to live.

About one-third of the residents put growth and sprawl at the top of their list of local problems, with concerns ranging from traffic congestion to too many new houses to water issues. In a time of economic prosperity at home and peace abroad, this level of concern for a local issue shows broad and deep worries about growth.

Crime, violence and drugs are major problems for Tampa residents – both locally and for the nation. This cluster of issues is second on their list of local problems and at the top of their list of national problems. Like the rest of the country, they also say the nation is troubled by moral issues – from the decline of family and religious values to the lack of moral leadership from political figures. (See The State of The Nation – The View from Tampa)

And on a number of specific topics, there are additional reasons for concern in the Tampa area.

• White residents and minority residents have sharply different views on whether local institutions treat minorities fairly. For example, two-thirds of white residents say the police treat everyone equally, while less than half of the minority residents agree. 
• Residents are more likely to say that recent immigrants from other countries caused problems in the United States than they are to say that the immigrants have made contributions. Forty-two percent say that recent immigrants have been a source of problems.
• A majority of Tampa residents say that the quality of the education in the local public schools is a problem. Updating the educational resources in the schools and reducing class sizes are seen as the greatest needs in the public education system, with about two in five saying each is a major need.
• While most residents express satisfaction with how much time they spend in everyday tasks, parents with children at home and those from households where both the husband and wife work are less satisfied with their leisure time.

This Survey

This survey is designed to provide journalists a clear look at where the nation and its communities stand at the start of a new century. This survey of the Tampa area – accompanied by a national poll and surveys in Denver Philadelphia and San Francisco – serves as a guide to areas worthy of further investigation and reporting and as a context for that investigation and reporting. In addition to the broad look at the state of the nation and the communities, the survey takes a closer look at public opinion in three specific problem areas: growth and sprawl, race, and education. These areas were identified by PCCJ as of particular importance in shaping the journalism of the years ahead. 

This poll for the Pew Center for Civic Journalism offered Tampa area residents the opportunity to list the issues most important to them, both at the national and local levels. A series of open-ended questions elicited free-form responses from the public about what is on their minds at the end of the decade. This approach allowed citizens to express their views without the filter of defining the problems to be discussed. After these free-form questions, more specific questions were included to focus on specific issues.

These are among the findings of a new survey in the Tampa area about the state of the country and our local communities at the end of the 1990s. This survey of adults aged 18 and older in the Tampa area was conducted on behalf of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts. This survey covered residents in Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties in the Tampa area. All the findings of the survey refer to that three-county area. A representative sample of 507 adults was interviewed by telephone during the period October 18 through November 3, 1999. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the error attributable to sampling is plus or minus five percentage points. Results based on smaller subgroups are subject to a larger margin of sampling error. In addition to sampling error, the practical difficulties of conducting telephone surveys can introduce error or bias into their results.

The State of The Community

Tampa area residents are happy with their community overall, although their views are less enthusiastic than most Americans about where they live. About two-thirds of area residents (65%) say they are satisfied with “the way things are going in the Tampa area.” Twenty-six percent are dissatisfied and nine percent are not sure. Those numbers are slightly below the figures from the national PCCJ survey, in which 74 percent say they are satisfied with “the way things are going in your community” and 22 percent are dissatisfied. 

Judging Tampa with another yardstick, a strong three-quarters of residents (75%) give excellent or good ratings to the area as a place to live (The survey is based on telephone interviews with residents of Hillsborough, Pasco and Pinellas counties in the Tampa area. All references to Tampa, the Tampa area and the like refer to the three-county area.) About a quarter (24%) rate the area as excellent and about half (51%) rate it as good. Seventeen percent rate their community as only fair and six percent rate it as poor. Three percent do not answer. Again, these numbers are positive, but a bit below the national figures. For example, the percentage of Tampa residents who give the area an excellent rating is less than the 32 percent in the national survey who give their communities excellent marks.

With such high ratings, the variations that do exist come in how positive members of demographic groups are about the area. 

• Men are more likely to give a positive rating to the area than women (82% vs. 69%). (Differences in survey findings are noted in this report only if they meet the criterion of statistical significance at the 95% level of confidence.) And men are more likely than women to say it is an excellent place to live (30% vs. 18%).
• Positive ratings of the area rise as people’s incomes increase. Of those who make under $20,000 a year, 11 percent rate their communities as excellent. For those making $60,000 or more, 42 percent give excellent marks. 

Looking at the question of satisfaction, similar patterns emerge.

• While roughly three-quarters (76%) of men say they are satisfied with the way things are going in Tampa, 56 percent of women express satisfaction. 
• Satisfaction levels rise with income – from 52 percent among those with incomes below $20,000 to 82 percent among those with incomes of $60,000 or more.
• Those who have at least attended college are more satisfied with the area than those who have not (71% vs. 60%).
• There are no significant differences by race in satisfaction with the Tampa area, although the data suggests the possibility that African-American residents may be slightly less positive about the area.

Top Local Problems

“Growth and traffic. It has become a major thing…The growth has gotten out of hand.”
— Words from one Tampa resident

Growth, sprawl and traffic add up to the top problem on the list of local issues troubling Tampa residents. This cluster of issues is diverse, but all focus on the impact of growth and development on the daily lives of individuals. Whether it is traffic congestion, poorly-maintained roads, inadequate water supplies or crowded schools, all the complaints focus on the quality of life that is endangered as the local infrastructure fails to keep pace with growth and development. (See Table 1.)

Note: An asterisk (*) means less than .5 percent gave this answer.

Issues related to sprawl are mentioned more often by men, the college-educated, white residents and higher-income people.

• Thirty-nine percent of the men mentioned growth and development as the top issue, compared with 28 percent of the women.
• Those who have at least attended college are more likely to be concerned about it than those who have not (42% vs. 26%).
• And white residents are more likely to mention it than African-American residents (35% vs. 18%). (The actual number of interviews with African-American and Hispanic residents in this survey are small, making the numbers less reliable. Differences by race are mentioned only where they are statistically significant.)
• Those with daily commutes to work of an hour or more (a very small group) are clearly the group most troubled by this issue: 60 percent name it as the top local problem.

Crime is the No. 2 local problem from the Tampa point of view, mentioned by just about one in five residents (22%) as the top local issue. It is slightly more likely to be the top issue for those who have not been to college and lower-income residents.

• Among those who make less than $20,000 a year, 31 percent mention crime as an issue, compared with only 12 percent of those who make $60,000 a year and more. 
• Those who have not been to college mention crime as the top issue 28 percent of the time, compared to 16 percent of those who have gone to college. 
• African-American residents name crime the top issue 35 percent of the time, compared to 22 percent for white residents. 

Top Local Problems: Growth, Traffic and Sprawl

The Tampa-St. Petersburg area has seen explosive growth over the past few decades, growth that has meant jobs, money and opportunity for the community and its residents. But this growth and development has had negative impacts as well, impacts that loom large as problems in the minds of many area residents.

The complex of issues surrounding growth, development, traffic and roads is easily the top issue on the list of problems that Tampa residents mention without prompting, with 33 percent doing so. 

And these issues are viewed as big problems when they are examined from other perspectives. Asked whether traffic congestion is a problem in the community where you live, a majority of Tampa residents (56%) say it is a big problem. And 25 percent say it is a small problem. Only 17 percent say traffic congestion is not a problem where they live. 

Likewise, “too much growth and development” are labeled as a big problem in the Tampa area by 40 percent of residents. Twenty-six percent say it is a small problem and only 31 percent say it is not a problem.

The Daily Grind

Traffic is perceived to be a problem in part because residents spend so much time in their cars. Nearly nine out of ten Tampa area workers (92%) commute to their jobs on an average day. For just a third of the workers (32%), the commute takes less than 15 minutes. About another third (35%), the daily commute lasts 15 minutes to just under half an hour. But for 27 percent of the workers, the travel to work lasts half-an-hour to just under an hour. And for four percent of the workers, the commute is an hour or more each way each and every workday. These figures are close to those from the national survey.

In national terms, the average commute is getting longer. A 1993 survey for Family Circle magazine found 42 percent saying the daily commute was less than 15 minutes; 31 percent saying 15 to 29 minutes; 20 percent saying a half an hour to 59 minutes and 5 percent reporting an hour or more each day. (Telephone survey for Family Circle Family Index Project, based on 2,004 interviews of adult heads of households, June 1-June16, 1993 by Princeton Survey Research Associates.)

Those who say traffic congestion is at least a small problem were asked to pinpoint the cause of the problem. The answers reflect the lack of a consensus on the reasons, one stumbling block to solving the problem. (See Table 2.) Forty-eight percent say that the reason is simple population growth in the area, while 23 percent blame a lack of adequate planning. Ten percent say not enough money has been spent on highways and transportation and 12 percent say over-development.

These figures are quite close to the analysis that Americans nationally give of the reason for traffic congestion in their communities.

The issues of growth and development are bedeviling local and state officials across the country and in Tampa, in part because there is a substantial division over how to deal with the problems. This split is evident in the answers to a question how local government should use its power to focus growth. Slightly under half of the public (47%) says that local government should allow growth and development in all areas. But a strong 42 percent say development should be limited to areas that are already built up, implicitly protecting those areas that are not yet developed.

Thinking about the problems most ignored by local officials, Tampa area residents put growth, development and roads at the top of the list. Eighteen percent of the Tampa area residents say that this issue is being ignored. Slightly fewer than one in ten residents say officials are ignoring problems related to crime and violence (9%) and to education (8%). 

Local newspapers and television stations have been devoting more and more stories to issues of sprawl, traffic and growth – and that effort has been noticed. Seventy percent of the Tampa public give the local news media excellent or good job marks for the job they do covering issues of growth, development and traffic. Only 21 percent give the local media only fair marks and six percent rate their work poor. Nationally, only 50 percent of the public give their local news media positive marks for covering the growth, development and traffic issues.

Top Local Problems: Crime and Safety

Not only is crime the No. 2 local problem on Tampa residents’ list of top issues, it is seen as an issue from a more direct perspective. Asked a specific question about crime, violence and drugs, 73 percent of Tampa residents say it is a problem in their community, including 37 percent who call it a big problem.

The concern about crime is real, but Tampa residents say they feel safe at home and in other familiar locales. Ninety-seven percent say they feel very safe or somewhat safe at home at night. Seventy-eight percent say they feel equally safe walking around their neighborhood at night. Despite recent tragedies at schools, 57 percent (The total percent who say they feel safe at schools is 57 percent. The numbers in the table –18 percent very safe and 38 percent somewhat safe – are rounded to integers. Each percentage is actually slightly greater than the integer value and thus together, they add to 57 percent.) say that they feel they and their families are safe at school. And nearly two-thirds say they feel safe at the shopping malls at night. (A substantial number say the questions about schools and shopping malls do not apply to them, suggesting that they do not shop at malls at night or no one in their household attends school.)

This general sense of feeling safe within one’s own home does not disguise some differences in the degrees of safety that various groups report.

• Men are more likely to say they feel very safe at home than women (69% vs. 59%).
• Two-thirds (66%) of whites report feeling very safe in their homes, but only 46 percent of blacks and Hispanics did so. 
• Only about half of those with incomes of less than $20,000 (53%) say they feel very safe in their homes, while 81 percent of those with annual household incomes of at least $60,000 express that degree of comfort.

These same patterns hold when looking at how safe Tampa residents feel walking in their neighborhoods after dark. 

• Half of all men reported feeling that their neighborhoods are very safe, but only 30 percent of all women say the same. About one out of five of all women (22%) say they feel “not too safe” or “not at all safe” in those situations. 
• While nearly two-thirds (65%) of those with incomes of $60,000 or more say they feel very safe when walking at night, only one-third (33%) of those with lower incomes say they feel that safe in their neighborhoods.
• White residents are more likely to report feeling verysafe (43%) than African-American (19%) or Hispanic residents (22%). Forty-five percent of the African-American residents say they feel at least somewhat unsafe when walking in their own neighborhoods at night. Only 13 percent of white residents report that concern.

People are less likely to say they feel safe going to the local shopping mall at night.

• Men are twice as likely as women to report feeling that nighttime shopping mall excursions are very safe (23% vs. 11%).
• Eighty-five percent of those with incomes of at least $60,000 say they feel safe at the malls, compared with only 53 percent of those with incomes of less than $20,000. 
• About a third (35%) of those age 65 and older say the question does not apply, suggesting that they and other family members do not go to shopping malls after dark. And among those that do, 39 percent say they do not feel it is safe.

Detailed Findings: Race

Only 17 percent of Tampa residents see tensions between racial and ethnic groups as a big problem in their local community. Overall, the Tampa public is split, with half saying racial tension is at least a small problem and 46 percent saying it is not a local problem. There are no significant differences between white, African-American and Hispanic residents in terms of their perception of the level of this problem in the community.

This view is tempered by findings of deep divisions about the benefits immigrants have brought to the nation and of sharp differences in the perceptions of fairness of local institutions.

• First, Tampa residents are more likely to say recent immigrants have caused problems in the United States than to say they have made contributions.
• Second, there is a substantial split between the views of white residents and those of minority residents on whether local institutions treat minorities fairly. For example, two-thirds of white residents say the police treat everyone equally, while less than half of the African-American and Hispanic residents agree.

Immigration

The impact of immigrants on America, on Florida and on the Tampa area has been enormous. And the country has seen a very diverse group of immigrants to the country over the last 20 years. 

On balance, Tampa residents see recent immigrants as more of a problem than a positive influence on the country as a whole. Forty-two percent of the public says that immigrants have been a big problem or a small problem for the country, with 28 percent saying they have created big problems and 14 percent saying they have created small problems. Only 20 percent say that immigrants have done more to improve the country than to cause problems. And about a quarter (26%) say that immigrants have not had much effect. These figures are not much different from those found around the country on the issue in the national PCCJ survey.

The Tampa public’s views are less harsh when the focus is moved from the country as a whole to their own community. Forty-one percent of the public say that recent immigrants have not had much impact on their community. Twenty-seven percent say that immigrants have caused problems in their community, with 16 percent saying they have caused big problems and 11 percent saying they have caused small ones. Only 17 percent of the public say that recent immigrants have improved their local community.

Tampa residents are more likely than all Americans to say recent immigrants have done more to improve their local area (17% vs. 10%). (See Figure 3.) But they are also more likely to say that recent immigrants have caused problems (27% vs. 20%). The net effect of these two differences is that fewer Tampa residents say that immigrants have not made any difference (41% vs. 61%).

The figures from the national PCCJ survey actually reflect a slight improvement in the past few years. A survey in 1997 for the Knight-Ridder newspapers found that 50 percent of Americans said that recent immigrants created problems for the country, with 33 percent saying they had created big problems (A telephone survey for Knight-Ridder Newspapers by Princeton Survey Research Associates, based on interviews with 1,314 adults, age 18 years and older, May 2-26, 1997.) The same number in each survey (16%) say that immigrants have improved the nation, while fewer in the survey in 1997 say that they have had no impact (27%).

Differing Perspectives

There is a long history of research documenting the differences between the views of white and minority Americans and this survey continues to show those disparities. The national PCCJ survey shows white Americans are more likely to have a positive opinion of their community than African-Americans. Nationally and in Tampa, African-Americans are more likely to identify crime as an issue and less likely to mention growth and sprawl as problems.

The survey includes a series of four questions designed to elicit judgments on whether key local institutions – schools, local government, police and local news media – treat everyone in Tampa fairly or not. Without exception the majority opinion for each institution is that the institution is fair. And without exception, African-American residents are less likely to agree with the perception of fairness. With only one exception, Hispanic residents do agree that the institutions are fair. But they do not say that about the police. (See Table 5.)

The total number of interviews with African-American residents and with Hispanic residents is small. While the differences reported here are statistically significant, the results from each subgroup are subject to large possible sampling errors and thus should be treated with care. The national PCCJ survey and the surveys in Denver, Philadelphia and San Francisco did find somewhat similar patterns, with African-American residents consistently less likely to view institutions as fair and with a more mixed view from Hispanic residents.

NOTE: ***= The 73 percent finding among Hispanics is notsignificantly different from the 55% finding among African-Americans.

Three-quarters of Tampa residents (77%) say “All the students have an equal chance to get a good education in our local public schools, regardless of race.” Only 15 percent agree that “students who are black, Hispanic or other minorities do not have as good a chance to get a good education in the local public schools.” 

• White residents see the schools as fair by an 80 percent to 12 percent margin. African-American residents are substantially less likely to agree, with only 55 percent seeing equal educational opportunity and 34 percent seeing a lack of equality. 

In terms of the local government, most (64%) agree that “the local government treats everyone the same, regardless of race”, with only 23 percent taking the opposing view that “the local government unfairly treat blacks, Hispanics and other minorities more harshly than others.”

• Most white residents say the local government is even-handed, by a 67 percent to 19 percent edge. But African-American residents disagree, with only 40 percent seeing the local government as fair and 53 percent saying that it is not fair.

Dealings with the local police are often a sore point with minorities and these results suggest this is true in Tampa. While the public overall says the police are fair by a 61 percent to 26 percent edge, that is most definitely not the view in the minority community. 

• White residents agree that the police treat everyone equally by a 65 percent to 22 percent margin. African-American residents take the opposite view, with only 42 percent saying the police treat minorities fairly and 54 percent disagreeing. Hispanic residents take a somewhat middle position, with 47 percent saying the police are fair and 38 percent saying they are unfair. 

“There is biased reporting on minorities who are unfairly portrayed in media.” 
— One view from Tampa

The local news media is also viewed as fair by the Tampa public generally, but as unfair by the African-American community in Tampa. About two-thirds (67%) agree that “the news media treats everyone the same, regardless of race.” Just one-quarter (25%) say that “the news media unfairly runs too many negative stories about blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.”

• White residents see the news media as fair by 72 percent to 21 percent. In contrast, African-American residents agree with the criticism of the news media by a 67 percent to 23 percent margin.

Neighborhood Diversity

When Tampa residents walk their neighborhood streets, they say they see diversity. Forty-four percent say that there is a mixture of racial groups in their neighborhood. Twenty-six percent report that most of the people in their neighborhood are of their race and 25 percent of the public say that everyone in their neighborhood is the same race as they are. 

Tampa area residents say they would not move out of their neighborhoods if the racial makeup of the area changed substantially. Asked if they would move if their neighborhood changed so much that “a great majority of your neighbors were of a different race than you”, only 11 percent say they would move. Seventy-six percent say they would not move. Eleven percent say it would depend on the circumstances.

Despite these reports of substantial diversity in the neighborhoods, most Tampa residents say that they talk with those of different races outside of the neighborhood. Forty percent say that they most often talk to those of other races at work. Twenty-three percent say those conversations most often occur in stores and shops. Only 11 percent say they most often talk with others of different races in their neighborhoods and five percent say at school. Eight percent report the conversations at church and 11 percent at some other place. These numbers are virtually identical to the findings in the national PCCJ survey.

Report continued in Tampa Part Two…