The City of Columbia has launched its 2026 community survey. It’s asking for feedback on affordable housing, public safety and other key community issues.
Most sections stay the same each year so Columbia can compare itself against peer cities. But Stacey Weidemann, who developed this year’s survey, said the biggest change for 2026 is in the city’s planning and development process section.
There, residents can now weigh in on residential and commercial development.
“I think most people would probably have a feeling about the availability of affordable housing for rent or for sale in our community than the standards related to our development process,” Weidemann said.
Weidemann thinks survey results might not yet reflect the establishment of Columbia’s new communications department because City Council just approved the department in March, centralizing public relations in the city.
Last year, less than half of survey respondents were satisfied with the availability of information about city programs and services, as well as city efforts to keep them informed on local issues.
“We try to time them [the surveys] so councils are talking about their priorities for the year around the same time that we’re getting this feedback from the community,” Weidemann said.
Previous survey results about safety concerns have informed Columbia's priorities, including a recent push for a public safety tax that will soon fund new police and firefighter positions.
Jennifer Bowden, who designs surveys to support mid-Missouri towns’ development plans as part of the Mid-MO Regional Planning Commission, said what residents say and what data says about a city can sometimes conflict.
“It can be very difficult to try and work around the perception ... trying to help people understand why money’s going one place and not another place,” Bowden said.
In Columbia, community discussions on crime tend to highlight downtown, reflected in 2025’s community survey responses where residents called for more visible police presence downtown. But gun violence statistics mapped by the Columbia Missourian show violent crime extends outside of that bubble.
The survey provides residents a platform to comment on public safety, ranking which issues they believe are among the worst problems in Columbia. Weidemann said the survey will be open until at least 800 responses across the city have been received.
