The Lehigh Valley Research Consortium (LVRC), in partnership with the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation, the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and Muhlenberg College, has released the most recent Lehigh Valley Quality of Life survey results.

The survey was conducted by the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion (MCIPO) in September of 2018 for the Lehigh Valley Research Consortium (LVRC) in conjunction with the LVRC’s annual State of the Valley Report. It examined the perceptions of adult residents of Lehigh and Northampton counties regarding social, economic and environmental aspects of life in the Lehigh Valley.

The 2018 survey results are compared, when possible, with findings from surveys conducted by the MCIPO and the Morning Call between 2003 and 2015. This survey marks the 14th in a series of annual observations of citizen views on life in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Between 2003 and 2015 the survey was conducted through a partnership between the Morning Call and Muhlenberg College. The project was on hiatus in 2016 and 2017 before the Lehigh Valley Research Consortium (LVRC) initiated a new fielding of the survey in conjunction with its 2018 State of the Valley Report.

Some noteworthy findings of this report include sources of information and trust in news sources.

A strong majority of Lehigh Valley residents rate the quality of life in the region positively, with over nine out of 10 indicating life in the area is either “excellent” or “good.” Further, other than information from family and friends, Lehigh Valley residents are most likely to trust information from colleges and universities. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction with transportation in the Lehigh Valley reached record levels in 2018 with almost half (46 percent) of local adults rating transportation in the region as either “not so good” or “poor.” Other areas analyzed include race relations, perception of the local environment, job satisfaction, and more.

The full report and its results are available at http://bit.ly/LVRCQOL. Further details regarding the LVRC and its background work in this area are available on the LVRC website at www.lehighvalleyresearch.org.