Quality of Life in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, 1975

This study of 1,194 adults in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties in Detroit in 1975 was part of an extensive research project designed to produce important theoretical and operationally useful research results on the urban environment and quality of life. Respondents were either the head, or the spouse of the head, of household. The sample provided adequate representation of both Detroit itself and the surrounding area, and of racial and economic subgroups. It was taken from the geographic area defined as the 1971 Detroit SMSA, which included Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. Data were gathered on population, housing, and neighborhood characteristics, including percentagized data on age groups, unemployment rate, labor force, occupancy and vacancy rate, tenureship, single family ownership, ownership or rental by racial groups, crime rate, injuries, and ejection. Respondents were asked about the public transportation system, schools, recreational opportunities, public safety, housing, and sanitation in their neighborhood. Other items probed respondents' feelings about their neighborhood, work, the Detroit tri-county area in relative terms, preferred place to live in the United States and reasons for their choice, future unemployment in the Detroit tri-county area, city officials, taxes and the variety of local services taxes were used for, and use of violence to effect social change. Additional items probed respondents opinions about private schools, quality of public schools, the police, neighborhood problems, and integrated neighborhoods, as well as recreational activities. Also probed were respondents' satisfaction with their life, time spent with family, marriage, housing, government's recreational facilities for children in their neighborhood, and the quality and price of foods in supermarkets. Background items specify age, date of birth, education, race, shades of skin color, marital status, personality type, family income, employment, religion, labor union membership, previous residence, household size and composition, home ownership, and length of stay in neighborhood.