Edmonton Area Survey, 1978

The Edmonton Area Study is now in its second year. This year the study was expanded with a larger interview schedule and mo re respondents (341 in 1977 versus 452 in 1978). As this is an amalgam survey, faculty members in the Department of Sociology were canvassed for submissions. There was a strong interest in the study and a broad range of topics were covered (see Appendix A). A concern which was carried over from the 1977 study was that we be able to develop a longitudinal picture of the "quality of life" in Edmonton and assess changes that take place in Edmontonians' evaluation of their daily lives. Some questions relating to social well-being asked last year were repeated on this year's study. The comparison of these findings is presented later in this discussion. From last year's study we found that we had put a heavy reliance on attitudinal measures but had spent little time gathering information on behavioural measures. As a result, questions relating to time budgets, social networks, residential mobility and life events were included. In addition, we added measures of objective living conditions (e.g. size of dwelling) and improved our measures of such things as income (this year we included questions on investments and transfer payments, as well as total household income); ethnic background; education; and so on. These measures should provide a much more comprehensive picture of the characteristics of our respondents. An innovation in this year's study was the addition of a "special topics" section which allows for a detailed analysis of a specific area of interest. This year's special topic related to "urban values and included questions on residential characteristics, neighbourhoods, attitudes toward urban growth, and citizen participation strategies.