Cincinnati Vice Mayor Jan-Michele Lemon Kearney said she is disappointed with the results of the biannual survey on how Queen City residents feel about their own homes.
The survey, completed by ETC Institute, was discussed earlier this week at a Cincinnati City Council meeting.
During the meeting’s presentation, it was noted that 42% of those surveyed had a positive view of Cincinnati’s overall image. In 2023, results showed 65% of those surveyed had a positive perception of the city.
The largest declines between 2023 and 2025 occurred in broad, perception-based measures that historically reflect cumulative sentiment over time rather than short-term operational changes, according to the executive summary of the survey results document.
These measures include the overall image of the city, the overall quality of services provided by the city, and rating the city as a place to live, work, raise children, and the overall feeling of welcome in the city. While these indicators remained relatively stable between 2021 and 2023, the sharper decline observed in 2025 suggests a broader change in resident mood and confidence rather than a sudden decline in city performance.
“It wasn’t the best of news,” Kearney said Thursday morning. “The ratings weren’t high, and that’s always concerning. It doesn’t sound like they had a lot of confidence in city leadership, and that would be on us as a council, so we have a lot of work to do.”
Specifically, opinions on public safety dropped overall. According to the 163-slide document, 32% of the people surveyed felt safe within the city. In 2023, 40% of respondents said they felt safe in Cincinnati.
In 2021, 59% of respondents selected “the city’s overall efforts to prevent crime” as the most important public safety item to focus on over the next two years, this figure increased to 67% in 2023 and rose to 71% in 2025, according to the data.
“We really got pummeled last summer about public safety, and so I totally understand that,” the vice mayor said. “We do have some hot (crime) spots, and we’ve got to deal with them, and we have to do a better job of that.”
Kearney added that the results were not a policing problem, but a communication problem.
“I think the lack of confidence in our leadership was probably the most hurtful,” Kearney said. “But what we need to pay a lot of attention to, because we are elected by the people of Cincinnati to serve, and if they feel we’re not serving them, well, that’s a big wake-up call for us.”
According to the survey results, 53% of the survey respondents chose potholes as their first, second or third choice for what needed the most attention from the city over the next two years. There were 15 options on the slide.
Kearney said she understood the public’s dissatisfaction with potholes and sidewalks, but that fixing issues with the streets is a result of Ohio’s weather and takes time.
“Our Department of Public Services was out early, before the snow fell, treating the streets,” Kearney said of the more than 60 trucks deployed to clear streets this winter. “They used technology to see what areas needed more treatment.”
Kearney said the survey was not all bad news. 311 Cincy, the city’s customer service system, ranked low on the survey’s priorities for cities.
“(311) won a national award,” she said. “They’re doing an excellent job, and that’s really part of public safety to get the services you need when you’re in a crisis.”
An operator at 311 Cincy was given an AFSCME Never Quit Award last fall for his service to the community.
Kearney also acknowledged the positive marks the city’s fire and ambulance services collected.
“When you look at our fire department and our police department, I mean, these are just some phenomenal men and women who are out there serving every day, and they’re part of the community,” she said. “I don’t think that came out in the survey.”
Kearney said there were issues her city leaders were working on, one conversation at a time.
“We know that there are inequalities,” she said. “We know we have issues with segregation, and we’re looking at those issues head on to see how you know how we can do better, and what can we do to make Cincinnati better? That’s real to me. We can’t run from problems. We have to take on the challenges. They can’t get solved overnight, but the fact that we listen to our citizens, we work with them and for them, and I think that’s really key.”