When people don’t like what data shows, they criticize the methodology in compiling the data.
The city’s Office of Internal Audit community survey is just the latest example.
Since it over-represents suburban, middle-class white residents and under-represents urban, economically challenged blacks and Hispanics, it has been criticized as fatally flawed.
But it, like so many other statistical snapshots of a larger whole, is just a snapshot. It should not be the document on which public policy is determined, and neither should it be tossed out like yesterday’s classified email.
It carries some challenges for the city, certainly, but it also portrays a city holding its own or making gradual improvements in many areas of service.