Keeping the character
of the valley
Evaluating our community assets and their impact on our quality of life:
Household Values Survey
What do Mat-Su residents value most?
Attitudes toward salmon, land use, and the environment
What do Mat-Su residents value most?
Top three actions residents would be willing to pay to achieve.
In 2012, UAA’s ISER surveyed Mat-Su residents asking what they would like their community to look like in thirty years. Focus groups in Houston, Palmer, Wasilla, Sutton, and Talkeetna helped identify land use issues for the survey. Survey recipients chose between different land use and development scenarios and were given options about how much they were willing to pay for the future they wanted. Results showed that Mat-Su residents want the future to look like the valley they know, or knew — one with fully restored salmon runs, farmland used for…farming, and access to recreation areas. It’s what brought many of them here in the first place and it’s what they’d like for their kids to experience.
Mat-Su Community Survey
Attitudes toward salmon, land use, and the environment
Since 2006, the University of Alaska’s Justice Center and the Mat-Su Borough (MSB) have conducted an annual survey of residents about issues like borough revenue and taxation, perceptions of crime, and use of borough services and facilities, for example. In 2014, a new series of questions was added to guage attitudes about salmon, land use and the impact of the environment on our health.
The survey proves out that salmon are highly valued by the community. 82% of respondents agreed that salmon are important to the Mat-Su economy. The results also showed that residents believe salmon are facing long-term problems and they strongly support the protection of healthy salmon habitat. The salmon section, and indeed the whole report, is an interesting and worthwhile read on local values.