Calgarians are growing more optimistic about the city’s direction but more are questioning the value they get for their tax dollars, according to a new city survey.
The City of Calgary conducts two annual surveys, in the fall and spring, with the latest fall survey set to be presented to the new city council Monday as part of the 2026 budget proposal.
According to the findings, 71 per cent of respondents rated their quality of life in Calgary as good or very good, down slightly from the spring survey but up five per cent compared to last fall’s survey; although that survey was conducted following a summer of water restrictions due to the rupture of a critical city feeder main.
Nearly seven-in-10 of respondents believe Calgary is on the right track to be a better city in 10 years, with 68 per cent noting the city is a great place to make a living. Seventy-three per cent agreed Calgary is also a great place to “make a life.”
“I’d say overall it’s not bad,” Jon Buda said when asked about quality of life in Calgary. “It’s a fairly safe city compared to Toronto and other parts of Canada.”
However, only 42 per cent of those surveyed believe Calgary is moving in the right direction to ensure a high quality of life for future generations and 56 per cent feel their quality of life has worsened over the past three years.
“It’s a little bit tougher just because everything is not as affordable now, back in the day it was easier,” Calgarian Liam Leeson told Global News in response to the results. “But I still believe living in Calgary is very safe, fun and enjoyable anywhere you go.”
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Ahead of budget deliberations in a matter of weeks, 39 per cent of respondents felt infrastructure, traffic and roads topped the list of issues Calgarians found most important, followed by crime, safety and policing, which moved up to the second spot compared to the spring survey.
Ward 3 Coun. Andrew Yule said the information is important for the new council heading into budget discussions, and matches up with what he heard while on the campaign trail.
“One of the things I saw in correlation with door-knocking was the need for infrastructure,” he said. “North-central Calgary is feeling the pinch of that growth in Ward 3 without the corresponding infrastructure to support it.”
Overall, two-thirds, or 69 per cent, of respondents were satisfied with the level and quality of services and programs offered by the city, which has trended upward in the previous two surveys.
Despite the satisfaction with services, less than half, or 42 per cent, of respondents feel they’re getting good value for their property taxes.
That statistic is concerning for Ward 5 Coun. Raj Dhaliwal, who hopes the issue can be addressed by the new council as well as some infrastructure investments allocated to pavement quality by the previous council later in its term.
“People believe what they touch and feel,” Dhaliwal said. “People believe when their roads are not bumpy, people believe the value is there when they see the grass is mowed every month or so, that’s the value they see.”
However, when it comes to the “trade-off” between taxes and services, the survey showed 50 per cent of respondents leaned towards increasing taxes to maintain or increase services, while 42 per cent would rather see services cut to maintain or reduce property taxes.
The 2026 budget includes an overall property tax increase of 3.6 per cent, or around 5.4 per cent for the average residential homeowner, but Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas has indicated he’d like council to make a “significant” reduction to the increase by “at-least half.”
“We think that’s practical,” Farkas said. “We’ve got to still invest in safety, and we need to ensure that we’re spending the appropriate money around essential infrastructure, we need to get rolling on water pipes. There’s a lot of areas where we need to lean in.”
Calgarians’ satisfaction of how the city is run declined slightly to 59 per cent, down four per cent from the spring survey, while just under half or 47 per cent of respondents trust the city, down from 52 per cent in the spring but up from 41 per cent last fall.
According to the city, the decline in trust “appears to reflect a shift toward neutral” rather than distrust.
But they’re numbers Farkas believes he and the new council “inherited” from the previous mayor and city council, and that he hopes to improve.
“Calgarians want to see their views and voices reflected in the decisions that are made here,” the new mayor said. “That’s our collective commitment.”
Ipsos Public Affairs conducted the survey for the city and interviewed 2,500 Calgarians over the phone from July 30, 2025 to Aug. 28, 2025, and the survey has a margin of error of ± 1.96 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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