Prepared by Greg Brown

Associate Professor

Alaska Pacific University

(907) 564-8267 (gregb@alaskapacific.edu)

Walter J. Hickel (1994)

In April of 1999, a mail survey was conducted by Alaska Pacific University. The survey contacted approximately 2800 residents in 17 Alaskan communities concerning the quality of the life in their communities. Over 700 responses were received (a response rate of 25%) from individuals living in the communities of Anchorage, Cooper Landing, Cordova, Hope, Girdwood, Juneau, Kenai, Ketchikan, Moose Pass, Petersburg, Seward, Sitka, Skagway, Soldotna, Sterling, Valdez and Whittier.

The mail survey contained questions in six sections: 1) What do residents value most about the community where they live? 2) What is the importance and satisfaction level of residents with 30 (pre-selected) quality of life items? 3) How do residents rate their community on characteristics such as its attractiveness, economic diversity, effectiveness of government and community leaders, cohesiveness, autonomy, and preparedness for the future? 4) How important are public land uses/opportunities to the community’s quality of life and how satisfied are residents with these public land opportunities? 5) What future economic changes would residents like to see in their community? and 6) How would respondents characterize themselves? (for example, in terms of income and education levels, gender, and occupation).

The following findings are generalizations of the survey results. Detailed survey responses for each community may be found here.

1. Quality of life is a multi-dimensional and complex concept. The opening quote from former Governor Walter Hickel is perhaps more poetic than scientific, but it is not far from reality in Alaska. Differences in perceived quality of life in Alaskan communities can be attributed to a multitude of factors: the economic structure of a community, local and regional amenities such as clean air/water and beauty of surrounding area, opportunities for youth, culture and entertainment, hunting/fishing and recreational opportunities, community transportation system, and safety in the community. How these factors and others are blended and reconciled by an individual is inherently subjective, and yet, patterns do emerge at a community level of analysis.
2. The natural (as opposed to human) environment is the foundation of quality of life in Alaska. The most important contributors to quality of life in Alaska are those elements associated with the natural environment: clean air and water, the beauty of surrounding areas, and open, undeveloped areas. These natural elements were important to all communities in the study and were consistently rated more important than human-centered quality of life elements.
3. Alaskan communities exhibit different capacities for coping with change—a concept called community resiliency. The most resilient communities are those that have strong civic leadership, a diverse economy, a strong sense of community, and abundant special places nearby. Highly resilient communities plan, organize, and act in response to change thus dampening potentially negative effects of change whereas non-resilient communities are more volatile and experience more dramatic swings in fortune. The most resilient communities found in this study were Anchorage, Sitka, and Juneau while the least resilient communities include Whittier, Sterling, and Valdez.
4. Measures of community resiliency components vary from community to community. Civic leadership is the most important component of community resiliency. Communities with the highest perceived level of civic leadership were Skagway, Juneau, Cooper Landing, and Anchorage. Communities with the lowest perceived levels of civic leadership were Whittier, Sterling, and Cordova. Communities perceived to be the most diverse economically were Anchorage, Sitka, and Juneau while the least economically diverse communities were Sterling, Whittier, and Hope. Communities perceived to be the most socially cohesive were Cooper Landing, Moose Pass, and Petersburg while the least socially cohesive communities were Whittier, Anchorage, and Ketchikan. Finally, communities perceived to have the most abundance of special places nearby were Girdwood, Whittier, and Moose Pass while the least abundant were Ketchikan, Kenai, and Soldotna.
5. Quality of Life was measured two different ways in the survey with both relying on the perceptions of residents who live in the communities. Communities with the highest perceived quality of life include Cooper Landing, Petersburg, Girdwood, Cordova and Hope, while communities with the lowest perceived quality of life include Whittier, Valdez, Ketchikan, and Soldotna. Other communities in the study fell somewhere in-between these two ends on a quality of life continuum.
6. The most valued element of most Alaskan communities is location--being situated in beautiful and natural settings. There were several exceptions to this general finding. For Anchorage, the most valued community element was employment opportunities. For Hope, the most valued community element was peace and quiet. For Soldotna, the most valued community element was a small town atmosphere.
7. The public lands (e.g., national forests, parks, refuges and state parks) surrounding Alaskan communities play an important role in the quality of the life for these communities. Most communities view surrounding public lands as sources of clean air and water, as environments for fish and wildlife to flourish, and as places that provide opportunities for human recreation, broadly defined. Most communities are not actively looking to their surrounding public lands for economic development through resource extraction, although there are individuals in every community that hold such a utilitarian/extractive view of public lands. Although not the dominant view, Ketchikan has the strongest extractive view of surrounding public lands, primarily for forest resources.
8. Community residents were asked whether their community had become a more or less desirable place to live or whether their community had stayed the same in terms of desirability. Only one community--Hope--was perceived to have become a more desirable place to live by residents, primarily because of improvement in utility services. The communities of Anchorage, Cooper Landing, Girdwood, Moose Pass, Petersburg, Sitka, and Sterling were perceived to have maintained about the same level of desirability, while the remaining communities were perceived to have become less desirable for differing reasons: Cordova (Exxon Valdez oil spill, poor economy); Juneau (growth/development, population increase); Kenai (population increase, unemployment, fewer fish); Ketchikan (tourism impacts, unemployment); Seward (tourism impacts, growth/development); Skagway (seasonal economy, tourism impacts, influence of large corporations); Soldotna (more people/traffic, unemployment); Valdez (fewer job opportunities, poor city government); and Whittier (road access project, poor city management).
9. Community residents were asked what economic activities (by standard industry classification) they would like to see increase, decrease, or stay the same in their community. The communities of Cooper Landing, Hope, and Sterling appear content with their current state of economic development and desire little economic change. The communities of Whittier, Petersburg, and Ketchikan would like to see economic growth in a number of sectors including manufacturing, construction, commercial fishing, transportation, and other services (includes medical, education, and professional services). The remaining communities fall somewhere in-between these two groups on the economic growth continuum. Ketchikan and Petersburg would like to see an increase in the forest products industry. Cordova, Whittier, and Petersburg would like to see an increase in commercial fishing activity. All five Southeast Alaska communities would like to see an increase in manufacturing activity. By far, the strongest desire to increase economic activity from tourism came from Whittier residents. In contrast, Southeast Alaska communities (Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, and Petersburg) appear to be the most "fed up" with tourism and would like to see economic activity in this sector decrease. South Central and Kenai Peninsula communities are conflicted about further tourism development with indications that some of these communities (e.g, Seward, Soldotna, and Girdwood), are now reaching a level of tourism development that is perceived to negatively affect the quality of life in these communities.
10. Perhaps the ultimate measure of satisfaction with a community is whether an individual would continue to live in the community if given a choice to leave. Community residents were asked what they would do if they had the ability to live elsewhere with the same standard of living. Would they still live in their same community or would they move elsewhere? Responses were similar to those that measured the cohesiveness of a community—the more cohesive a community, the more community attachment and stronger desire to continue to live in the community. Residents of Girdwood, Cooper Landing, Sterling, Hope, and Sitka appear most satisfied with their community with more than 80 percent indicating they would still live in the same community. Residents of Valdez, Ketchikan, Anchorage, and Whittier are least satisfied with their community with over 40 percent of respondents indicating that would move elsewhere if given a choice.
11. How does quality of life in Alaska compare with other communities in the Lower 48? Several questions in this 1999 survey were also used in a 1995 study of 198 rural communities in the Interior Columbia River Basin (primarily Oregon, Washington, Idaho). It is thus possible to compare the perceived quality of life Alaskan communities with other rural communities in the lower 48. Communities in Alaska are not unique when it comes to quality of life. Those communities in Alaska that have the lowest quality of life ranking would also be among the lowest ranked communities in the West. Those communities in Alaska with the highest quality of life ranking would be among the higher ranked rural communities in the West. The unique natural and beautiful setting of many Alaskan communities, while one of the most important components to quality of life in Alaska, is but one part of quality of life. Other rural communities in the West, while perhaps having a lower quality natural environment compared to communities in Alaska, have other qualities that make them equally attractive to live.
12. Finally, with the current debate over the future of the Alaska Permanent Fund, survey participants were asked if they would support the idea of community dividend—a concept supported by former Alaska Governor Walter Hickel whereby individual Permanent Fund dividends would be capped with earnings beyond the individual dividend going back to communities for public projects determined by the people of the community. No community supported the concept of community dividend and overall, only about 19 percent of the survey respondents supported the concept.

This study is an assessment of perceived living conditions in 17 Alaskan communities. For those communities that are actively engaged in long-range planning efforts, this information can be used as a consistency check with current community planning direction. For those communities that have are not actively engaged in long-range planning, this information may be viewed a starting point for a series of community dialogues about the future of the community.

For public land management agencies--the message is clear--the natural environment is extremely important to community quality of life. Public agencies should move cautiously with respect to major changes to the landscape and when changes are deemed necessary, the decision process should be inclusive of local community interests.

Communities that appear to offer relatively high quality of life (e.g., Girdwood, Cooper Landing, Sitka, and Hope) should focus on how they can protect and preserve those community characteristics that are important to them and establish meaningful limits to change that would still allow residents to enjoy the relatively high quality of life. The failure to establish meaningful limits to change for a community is like playing roulette--it is possible for the relatively high quality of life offered by that community to survive into the future—but the odds are against it.

Communities that appear to offer relatively low quality of life (e.g., Whittier, Valdez, and Ketchikan) should focus on those community characteristics that need to change and identify those individuals in the community that can bring about the change. Community change is inextricably tied to community leadership. Communities that continue to look externally for problem resolution will never develop the capacity to solve problems in the long run. The biggest obstacle for these communities will be the recruitment and training of true believers in the community that have the ability to craft and mold community cohesion while simultaneously leading the community through a series of (usually painful) economic transitions.

Each Alaskan community has a unique character and flavor defined by its setting and the people of the community. To continue to improve the quality of life in Alaskan communities, we must know the specifics about a community--its strengths and weaknesses and its fears and desires. As thorough as this community assessment attempted to be, there is no substitute for asking the people of the community interactively what they envision for the future of their community--a process often referred to as "visioning". Relatively few communities in Alaska have engaged in a visioning process and few (if any) have integrated and institutionalized a visioning process into a community planning framework. If visioning is obtainable for most communities, vision realization remains illusive. It is my hope that these survey results will spur individuals to ask probing questions about their community's future.