City releases second round of survey results
Most residents work at home, shop at home
By JENNIFER WILSON
News editor
Most area residents work in Hillsboro, rate the economy as "stable," and only want manufactured housing in mobile home parks.
Those are just a few items gleaned from the results of a community-wide survey, which was distributed to Hillsboro residents last October.
The first set of results was released in November, and this is the second segment to be tabulated. One more section remains — the open-answer area, and that will be released later.
The latest results, which were presented to the Hillsboro Community Planning and Development Commission at their monthly meeting last Thursday, show that residents have an overall positive attitude to living here.
Compared to surveys given to other Kansas cities, the results of Hillsboro's were "uncommonly positive," said engineering consultant John Riggs.
"People really like their town," he said.
The survey covers a wide range of topics, from housing to medical care. Here's a brief glimpse of the results from this segment of the survey. The following percentages do not include those who chose not to respond to a particular question.
Housing
Most people living in Hillsboro would like single-wide manufactured homes to stay within a mobile home park.
Sixty-two percent of those responding said that single-wides should stay within parks. Thirty-two percent said they should be allowed in "certain residential areas," and six percent wanted to allow them in all residential areas.
The majority of Hillsboro residents own their own homes — 82 percent owning, compared to 18 percent renting.
Seventy-nine percent of respondents said that there was adequate housing available for their age group.
Local economy
When asked to rate Hillsboro's economy, 59 percent called it "stable." Twenty-one percent said the economy was declining, and 18 percent said it was growing.
For the question "Are there members of your family between the ages of 16 and 65 that are currently unemployed and seeking work?" 94 percent said no. Six percent said that they were looking for work.
But one of the most interesting parts of the "economy" section deals with the work force. Where do people work? How far do they commute?
There are two sides to this question. The question reads, "Are you employed in Hillsboro?"
To that, 50 percent said yes, they work in Hillsboro. After that total, 33 percent of residents said that they were retired. Fifteen percent said they commuted out of town, and two percent said they worked both in town and out of town.
But within the active work force — excluding the retirees — 75 percent of residents work in. Twenty-three percent work outside of town, with three percent in both places.
And for those who work elsewhere, where are their jobs? The most popular places were Wichita, 12; McPherson, 11; Newton, 11; and Marion, five. Other towns where people work include Canton, Goessel, Halstead, Herington, and Hesston — and even Chicago, Ill.
Medical care
For medical care, 64 percent of Hillsboro residents see a doctor in the city. Twenty-one percent see the doctor elsewhere, and 14 percent see a doctor in both places. Also, 56 percent of residents visit Hillsboro Community Medical Center for their hospital stays, while 25 percent go elsewhere. Twelve percent use both HCMC and another hospital.
The numbers in favor of HCMC were significantly lower when it comes to births. Out of those who had a baby in the past five years, 81 percent of those moms went elsewhere to give birth. Just 19 percent, or four out of 21 moms, had their babies in Hillsboro.
Local business
The information on where Hillsboro residents spend their dollars should cheer local retailers.
When asked how much of their purchases are made in Hillsboro, 65 percent of those responding said they bought at least 60 percent of their items here in town. Only 15 percent of residents make less than 40 percent of their purchases in town.
Broken down into smaller segments, 33 percent of residents buy at least 81 percent of their goods at home. And 32 percent of residents make at least 81 percent of their household purchases locally.
Other questions asked residents to rate the appearance of local shopping districts — downtown, D Street, and Hillsboro Heights on Highway 56. The highway district got the highest approval rating, with 83 percent of residents calling it adequate or excellent. D St. came in second, with 82 percent calling it adequate or excellent.
Residents said that the downtown shopping district needed the most improvement — that was the choice of 27 percent of the respondents.
Recreation
In the area of recreation, 73 percent said that all age groups had adequate recreation opportunities. But looking closer, the numbers vary among age groups. In the 65 and over age bracket, 105 out of 121 residents said that they had plenty of recreation. But only half of those in the 20-34 age bracket agreed.
When asked if the city needs more public playlots in residential neighborhoods, the majority of people said no, with 54 percent. The biggest number of "no" votes came from the 65 and over crowd, but the majority of people in the 20-35 bracket said "yes" to more playlots.
Fifty-five percent of residents said they'd be willing to financially support more recreation projects. But again, that approval varied between age groups.
Those between the ages of 20 and 64 said they'd be willing to give money for more rec projects. But the majority of seniors and Tabor students said "no."
