The 44th Kinder Houston-area survey looked at opinions and concerns in Harris, Montgomery and Fort Bend counties.
HOUSTON — The Kinder Houston-area survey is the most comprehensive research about Houston, and it was released on Monday. Before it was out, KHOU 11’s Mia Gradney got a preview of the survey in an exclusive TV interview with the head of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research.
The survey sheds light on Houston-area residents’ top priorities, concerns, and their outlook for the place they call home.
This year’s Houston-area survey zooms out beyond Harris County to include the fastest-growing counties in the state: Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.
Crime and safety tops the list for Harris County, while traffic is top of mind in both Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.
Kinder Institute Director Ruth N. López Turley said data from their survey suggests that 53% of residents in Montgomery County and 58% of residents in Fort Bend County have a commute time of more than 30 minutes, while 46% in Harris County have a commute time of more than 30 minutes.
The survey also revealed where the region as a whole must do better: Food insecurity. It shed light on the region’s “have” and “have-not” populations.
“There’s a lot of income inequality in our region and in all three of those counties actually,” Kinder Institute Director Ruth N. López Turley told Gradney. “The first thing to point out is that there are actually quite a few residents that have very low earnings. In fact, about 25% of residents make less than $25,000 a year.”
“That’s not a livable wage,” Gradney replied.
“No, it’s not, and so a lot of folks are struggling,” López Turley said. “We know that the top 20% of earners make about half the total earnings.”
López Turley said the perceptions of Houston of higher-income residents are more positive, while the perceptions among lower-income residents are more negative.
“For example, when we ask people to rate the job opportunities here in the Houston region, people that are higher income tend to rate those opportunities as better than those that are lower income,” she said. “Those who are lower income are more likely to rate our job opportunities as poor or fair.”
You can watch Gradney’s full interview with López Turley in which they discuss the survey process, its findings, what challenges the city and region face, and more on KHOU 11+.
And here’s a link to the full survey released by Rice University on Monday.
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