Burlington, VT
Live Report
An up-to-date picture of what the public is thinking, based on responses from verified residents across the city. We aim for a respondent mix that's an accurate cross-section of the city — so there's a higher chance this report reflects the true feelings of the public.
City summary
The community's priorities reflect a diverse range of concerns. While 55% of residents emphasized themes like affordable housing and making Burlington bike-friendly, it’s important to note that nearly 45% of voices are not captured in these discussions. Issues like transportation, economy, health care, and environmental concerns are also prominent, highlighting the complexity of the community's needs and the wide variety of perspectives on improving life in Burlington.
These themes reflect ~55% of residents; the remaining ~45% raised Housing, Economy, Transportation, Health, Environment, Neighborhood, Safety, Education, Spaces, Other, Families, Rights.
AI-generated summary of resident responses — every quote below is verbatim.
Most Tagged Issues
Residents are invited to submit open-ended text responses — anonymous but verified real. We read each one and assign up to three tags based on the issue areas it refers to, then confirm with respondents that we tagged them correctly.
Based on 55Responses collected over 55Days:
Top Themes
We pull out the key messages from responses as direct, citable quotes, then group similar ones by theme. We identify the themes, but share the resident quotes that informed them — so there is always full transparency into how these insights are drawn.
Resident Ideas
We highlight particularly actionable, tangible, or unique ideas from residents. Because our goal is to spark real action in the real world — and action starts with an idea.
No ideas cleared the bar in this report. An idea has to name something concrete a resident actually wrote; when none does, this section stays empty rather than showing anything nobody said.
Appreciations
Democracy is often associated with anger, fighting, and bitterness. That's a byproduct of the current system's structure — not an inevitable truth. Here is what residents love about Burlington.
No appreciations cleared the bar in this report. This section only ever holds residents’ own warm words, so when none was picked it stays empty.
Previous Reports
This live report is updated every two weeks. Previous editions are archived here for research and citation.
This is the first published edition. As new reports are published, earlier editions will be kept here — each at its own permanent link.