Polco News & Knowledge

Where Wellness Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 13:00:01 GMT

Each year, Polco is proud to celebrate local governments with the Best in Governance Awards — the nation's only awards program honoring communities for both resident experience and measurable outcomes. These awards shine a light on the jurisdictions that stand out as the most effective, innovative, and community-centered across the country, as measured through national data.

We're continuing our series recognizing the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're spotlighting the Health & Wellness category.

About the Health & Wellness Category

Health and wellness form the foundation of every thriving community. From preventive care and mental health to access to affordable food and quality providers, residents' health both reflects and shapes a community's vitality. Strong outcomes in this area aren't only about individual well-being — they're deeply tied to local governments' ability to ensure access, equity, and long-term quality of life.

The Best in Governance Awards for Health & Wellness draw on two complementary lenses: resident feedback from the National Community Survey (The NCS) and national indicators from Polco's Government Performance Action & Lab (GPAL) platform. Together, these measures provide a powerful picture of how communities are advancing physical and mental health — combining what residents experience day to day with public health data on outcomes and system performance.

Because Health & Wellness is measured through both lenses, this year's honorees are recognized across three groups: Community Impact — Excellence highlights the top performers on measurable, public-data outcomes; Voice of the People — Excellence recognizes the communities with the highest resident ratings nationwide; and Voice of the People — Transformation celebrates those that achieved the biggest improvements in resident ratings over time.

2026 Top Performers: Health & Wellness

Community Impact — Excellence

City of Carmel, Indiana
Howard County, Maryland
Borough of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey

Voice of the People — Excellence

City of Clive, Iowa
City of Coral Gables, Florida
City of Naperville, Illinois
Town of Needham, Massachusetts
City of Plymouth, Minnesota

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Elk Grove, California
City of Fate, Texas
Town of Needham, Massachusetts
City of Port St. Lucie, Florida
City of Redlands, California

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in advancing physical and mental health for the people they serve. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

Congratulations to all of this year's Top Performers. We're honored to showcase your leadership in building stronger, smarter, and more connected communities. Visit our awards page for more information about Polco's Best in Governance Awards.

Where Culture Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 15:31:23 GMT

We're continuing our series recognizing the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're spotlighting the Education, Arts & Culture category.

About the Education, Arts & Culture Category

Education, arts, and culture are cornerstones of a thriving community. From strong schools and lifelong learning to vibrant cultural events and festivals, these opportunities enrich daily life, inspire creativity, and strengthen civic pride. Communities that invest in education and cultural vitality not only support residents today — they build the foundation for long-term prosperity and resilience.

The Best in Governance Awards for Education, Arts & Culture draw on two complementary lenses: resident feedback from the National Community Survey (The NCS) and national indicators from Polco's Government Performance Action & Lab (GPAL) platform. Together, these measures provide a powerful picture of how communities are fostering learning, creativity, and opportunity — combining what residents experience every day with public data on educational and cultural outcomes.

Because Education, Arts & Culture is measured through both lenses, this year's honorees are recognized across three groups: Community Impact — Excellence highlights the top performers on measurable, public-data outcomes; Voice of the People — Excellence recognizes the communities with the highest resident ratings nationwide; and Voice of the People — Transformation celebrates those that achieved the biggest improvements in resident ratings over time.

2026 Top Performers: Education, Arts & Culture

Community Impact — Excellence

Bremer County, Iowa
City of Mountain Brook, Alabama
Village of New Paltz, New York

Voice of the People — Excellence

Town of Davidson, North Carolina
City of Decatur, Georgia
City of Naperville, Illinois
City of Plymouth, Minnesota
City of Suwanee, Georgia

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Battle Creek, Michigan
City of Bozeman, Montana
City of Fate, Texas
City of La Vista, Nebraska
City of Suwanee, Georgia

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in fostering learning, creativity, and cultural vitality. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

Where the Economy Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 12:42:56 GMT

We're continuing our series recognizing the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're spotlighting the Economy category.

About the Economy Category

Economic vitality is one of the most visible signs of a thriving community. From bustling main streets to opportunities for residents across generations, the local economy reflects both private initiative and effective public leadership.

The Best in Governance Awards for Economy draw on two complementary lenses: resident feedback from the National Community Survey (The NCS) and national indicators from Polco's Government Performance Action & Lab (GPAL) platform. Together, these measures provide a powerful picture of how communities are fostering strong, inclusive, and resilient economies — combining what residents experience day to day with public data on economic strength.

Because Economy is measured through both lenses, this year's honorees are recognized across three groups: Community Impact — Excellence highlights the top performers on measurable, public-data outcomes; Voice of the People — Excellence recognizes the communities with the highest resident ratings nationwide; and Voice of the People — Transformation celebrates those that achieved the biggest improvements in resident ratings over time.

2026 Top Performers: Economy

Community Impact — Excellence

City of Harrisburg, South Dakota
Town of Morrisville, North Carolina
Town of Nolensville, Tennessee

Voice of the People — Excellence

City of Clovis, California
City of Coral Gables, Florida
Town of Davidson, North Carolina
City of Naperville, Illinois
City of Suwanee, Georgia

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Buckeye, Arizona
City of El Cerrito, California
City of Fate, Texas
City of Santa Cruz, California
City of South Lake Tahoe, California

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in building strong, inclusive, and resilient local economies. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

Where Design Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:49:39 GMT

We're continuing our series recognizing the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're spotlighting the Community Design category.

About the Community Design Category

Housing and design are central to livability. From neighborhood layouts to affordability and the character of public spaces, these factors influence how connected and resilient a community can be. This year's honorees are leaders in building places where residents want to live, work, and thrive.

The Best in Governance Awards draw on two complementary lenses: resident feedback from the National Community Survey (The NCS) and national indicators from Polco's Government Performance Action & Lab (GPAL) platform. Together, these measures provide a powerful picture of how communities are performing and improving in one of the most essential aspects of livability.

Because Community Design is measured through both lenses, this year's honorees are recognized across three groups: Community Impact — Excellence highlights the top performers on measurable, public-data outcomes; Voice of the People — Excellence recognizes the communities with the highest resident ratings nationwide; and Voice of the People — Transformation celebrates those that achieved the biggest improvements in resident ratings over time.

2026 Top Performers: Community Design

Community Impact — Excellence

City of Edina, Minnesota
Town of Palm Beach, Florida
Wyoming County, Pennsylvania

Voice of the People — Excellence

City of Clive, Iowa
City of Marion, Iowa
City of Naperville, Illinois
City of Plymouth, Minnesota
City of Shoreview, Minnesota

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Bozeman, Montana
City of Buckeye, Arizona
Honolulu County, Hawaii
City of San Marcos, Texas
City of South Lake Tahoe, California

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in designing places where residents want to live, work, and thrive. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

Where Connection Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:28:47 GMT

We're continuing our series recognizing the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're spotlighting the Community Connection category.

About the Community Connection Category

Community is at the heart of good governance. Beyond the roads, schools, and public safety services, residents want to feel connected — to their neighbors, to local leaders, and to the place they call home. That's why Community Connection is such a vital category in the Voice of the People Awards. This year's Top Performers stand out because their residents reported especially high ratings across the most meaningful measures of belonging and engagement.

The awards are based on extensive, high-quality data from the National Community Survey (The NCS), which provides a comprehensive picture of how communities are performing and improving in one of the most essential aspects of livability: people's sense of connection to one another and to their community. In addition to recognizing the five communities with the highest ratings nationwide (Excellence), we also celebrate the five jurisdictions that achieved the biggest transformations (Transformation) — those that made the greatest gains in strengthening community connection.

These local governments aren't just delivering services effectively; they're building the social infrastructure that makes communities thrive.

2026 Top Performers: Community Connection

Voice of the People — Excellence

City of Clive, Iowa
Town of Davidson, North Carolina
City of Decatur, Georgia
City of Naperville, Illinois
City of Suwanee, Georgia

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Battle Creek, Michigan
City of Bozeman, Montana
City of Fate, Texas
City of La Vista, Nebraska
City of South Lake Tahoe, California

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in connected, resident-centered governance. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

Where Trust Thrives: 2026's Top-Performing Local Governments

Polco — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:49:54 GMT

Over the coming weeks, we'll announce the Top Performers across essential areas of community livability. Today, we're kicking off the series with the Trust in Government category.

About the Trust in Government Category

Trust is the bedrock of the relationship between residents and their local governments. The National Community Survey (The NCS) captures this broad concept through a wide range of measures — from residents' perceptions of government honesty, fairness, and transparency, to their confidence in the direction of the community and the quality of services provided. In short, trust reflects both how people view their leaders' integrity and how satisfied they are with the value and performance of local government.

The Voice of the People awards for Trust in Government honor the cities and counties that excel in these areas. In addition to recognizing the five communities with the highest ratings nationwide (Excellence), we also celebrate the five jurisdictions that achieved the biggest transformations (Transformation) — those that made the most significant gains in earning residents' trust and confidence.

Together, these ten communities exemplify innovation, responsiveness, and the pursuit of excellence in governance.

2026 Top Performers: Trust in Government

Voice of the People — Excellence

City of Clive, Iowa
Town of Davidson, North Carolina
City of Plymouth, Minnesota
City of Shoreview, Minnesota
City of Suwanee, Georgia

Voice of the People — Transformation

City of Bozeman, Montana
Honolulu County, Hawaii
City of Redlands, California
City of Santa Cruz, California
City of Staunton, Virginia

What's Next

The communities recognized as Top Performers represent the very best in public engagement and transparent decision-making. The National Champions in each category will be announced in October.

The Best AI for Local Government Knows Your Community's Data

Polco — Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:30:45 GMT

Most local government leaders are testing AI right now. Type a question into a general chatbot and you get a fluent, confident answer in seconds. It can draft a memo, summarize a policy, or explain a best practice in plain language. That fluency is real, and it is useful.

But fluency is not the same as knowing your community. A general chatbot can write a tidy paragraph about parks and recreation. It cannot tell you whether resident satisfaction with your parks went up or down last year, how your spending compares to similar cities, or what your finance director flagged during the last budget cycle. It does not have your data. And when a model does not have the facts, it tends to produce something that sounds right instead of something that is right. For a city or county, that gap matters.What a general chatbot does not know

Ask a general chatbot about your community and it answers from the open internet and its training data. It has never seen the records that actually run your government:

Your benchmark survey results and the ten-year trends behind them
Your budget, the line items, and the trade-offs residents weighed in a simulation
Your dashboards and how your numbers rank against peer communities
Your strategic plan, your ordinances, and your codes
Your council history and the institutional knowledge that lives in staff memory

Without those, the chatbot fills in with generic advice or a plausible guess. That is fine for a rough first draft. It is not fine for a budget defense, a grant application, or a public presentation where every number has to be traceable.

The difference is grounding

The fix is not a smarter chatbot. It is a system that reads your actual records before it answers. In AI terms this is called grounding, or retrieval. The model does not answer from memory. It pulls the relevant facts from a trusted source, then writes its answer from those facts.

Polco built for this from the start. Polly, launched in 2023 as the first production AI agent designed for local government, does not sit on the open web. It sits on top of your data. That includes GPAL (Government Performance Action Lab), Polco's national public-data framework covering more than 70,000 geographies with over 400 indicators tracked across ten years, your Track dashboards, your benchmark surveys, and the data you upload yourself.

When you ask Polly a question, it first confirms your location and what you are authorized to see, pulls the relevant data points, and answers from them. It returns the source and the date alongside the number, with benchmarks and percentiles where available. That is the opposite of guessing. You can check the work.

What "AI with your own data" makes possible

Once AI is grounded in your records, the use cases stop being generic and start being yours.

Answers tied to your numbers. Ask how resident satisfaction with public safety has changed over five years and how you compare to similar-sized cities. Instead of a general explanation, you get your figures, your trend line, and a peer benchmark, with the source attached.

Bring your own data. With Bring Your Own Data (BYOD), you can import department statistics, budget allocations, service delivery metrics, council meeting notes, and the institutional knowledge that usually lives in scattered files or one person's memory. You can connect ordinances, policy documents, and strategic plans so answers stay aligned with your goals and your laws. The AI reads across all of it in one place.

Real work, not just conversation. Grounded AI does more than answer questions. Grace, Polco's grant-writing agent, drafts applications from your real community metrics and evidence, and Polco customers have won funding with its help. The same foundation drafts council summaries, public communications, and outreach content from your actual data rather than from a template.

AI built on your own history. Polco has built custom agents that answer from a single government's records: a legislative history agent that helps council members research past decisions, a procurement agent that guides teams using prior efforts and policy, and a finance knowledge agent built for the Government Finance Officers Association. Each one is useful precisely because it knows one organization's rules and history, not the average of the internet.

Grounding is what makes AI safe to use

There is a reason grounding matters more in government than almost anywhere else. Public decisions have to be defensible. A grounded system shows its sources, so staff can verify a number before it goes into a report or a budget book. Polco's AI is scoped to the data you are authorized to see, and it is designed as a support layer, not a replacement for official reports and not a decision-maker. Staff stay in control.

That honesty is the point. In the public sector, the value of AI is not how much it knows in general. It is whether you can trust what it tells you about your community.

The bottom line

The best AI for local government is not the one with the most general knowledge. It is the one that knows your surveys, your budgets, and your dashboards, and can show you where every answer came from.

See what grounded AI can do with your community's data. Request a demo.

What Government's Lowest-Rated Workplace Factors Signal About Organizational Health

Polco — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 14:22:38 GMT

Every employee survey has two audiences. The first reads the high scores and feels reassured. The second reads the low scores and learns something. In local government, the low scores are where the real work begins.

The National Employee Survey (NES) now represents more than 300,000 government employee voices across the country. Most of that data is encouraging. Around 87% of local government employees say they are satisfied with their jobs overall. Yet a specific set of workplace factors lands at the bottom of the ratings almost every time, across cities and counties of very different sizes and regions.Those low scores are not random noise. Looked at one by one, the ten lowest-rated factors can seem unrelated. One is about pay. Another is about communication. A third is about career growth. Read together, they behave like vital signs. Each one points to a specific part of an organization's health, and the pattern they form is remarkably consistent.

The ten lowest-rated factors collapse into five signals. Here is what each one says about the health of the organization behind it.

Signal one: accountability that runs only one way

The two lowest-rated items on the NES sit right next to each other. Only 40% of employees rate the connection between pay and performance positively. Just 42% say their organization manages low-performing employees effectively.

Put those two numbers together and a clear message emerges. Many employees do not see a reliable link between how well someone performs and what happens next. Strong performers want to know that good work is noticed and rewarded. They also want to know that weak performance is addressed. When neither feels true, the people you most want to keep start to wonder why they are working so hard.

As an organizational-health signal, this is about fairness and follow-through. Employees rarely expect a perfect system. They expect a consistent one.

Signal two: people who do not feel seen

Recognition shows up twice near the bottom. Only about half of employees say high performers are adequately recognized, and a similar share say they feel appreciated by the organization.

Recognition is one of the strongest predictors of engagement and retention, and it is also one of the least expensive to improve. It does not always require a raise or a bonus. Often it requires leaders to name good work out loud, connect it to the mission, and do so consistently. When appreciation is missing, people still do their jobs. They just stop going beyond them.

The health signal here is belonging. A workforce that feels seen stays through hard seasons. A workforce that feels invisible leaves at the first better offer.

Signal three: information that does not flow

Two communication items also land low. About half of employees say the organization shares enough information for them to understand the challenges it faces. A similar share rate the organization's responsiveness to important issues and change positively.

When communication is thin, people do not stop trying to make sense of things. They fill the gaps themselves, and the story they invent is usually worse than the truth. Silence during a budget crunch or a reorganization reads as bad news, even when it is not.

As a health signal, this is about trust under pressure. Organizations that explain the why, even when the news is hard, hold trust through change. Organizations that go quiet lose it.

Signal four: departments that work in silos

Collaboration between departments consistently rates among the lower-scoring factors. This one surprises few people who work in government. Departments develop their own goals, their own workloads, and their own language. Specialization is necessary. Isolation is not.

When teams stop working across lines, decisions slow down, good ideas stay trapped, and residents feel the seams between departments that were supposed to serve them as one government.

The health signal is alignment. A healthy organization shares problems across boundaries. A strained one defends turf.

Signal five: people who cannot see a future

Career development rounds out the pattern. Only a little more than half of employees say they can see a path to grow their career where they are.

This is not only about promotions, which are limited everywhere. It is about whether people can picture themselves learning, stretching, and advancing without leaving. Cross-training, mentorship, and new responsibilities all count. When employees cannot see a future inside the organization, they look for one outside it, and government cannot afford to lose institutional knowledge it spent years building.

The health signal is retention. People stay where they can grow.

The good news hiding in the low scores

The most important thing about these signals is that they move. They are not fixed traits of government work.

The City of Goodyear, Arizona, is the clearest example. When Goodyear first ran the NES, its rating for managing low-performing employees sat at 36%, right in line with the national pattern. After years of defining expectations, building a feedback system, and treating the survey as a report card rather than a formality, that number climbed to 73%, the highest in the country for that item. Nevada County, California, saw a similar arc on workplace flexibility after it brought employees into the redesign of its policies.

Neither organization fixed everything at once. Each picked a low-rated signal, listened closely, and acted. That is the pattern behind almost every turnaround.

Reading your own vital signs

The value of an employee survey is not the discomfort of the low scores. It is the direction they give. Ten low-rated factors that first look like ten separate problems turn out to be a short list of organizational-health signals: fairness, belonging, trust, alignment, and growth. Strengthen those, and engagement, retention, and performance tend to follow.

Polco's National Employee Survey helps local governments read these signals with confidence. It provides statistically reliable feedback, national benchmarks that show how your organization compares, and clear guidance on where leaders can make the greatest difference. Instead of guessing what employees mean, you see it, and you see where to start.

Ready to read your organization's vital signs? Request a demo to see how The National Employee Survey can help. You can also try Polco free to start exploring.

The Data on Data Centers: What Residents Really Think About the Boom Next Door

Polco — Tue, 08 Sep 2026 14:27:48 GMT

A few years ago, most residents would have struggled to define a data center. Today, these buildings are one of the fastest-rising items on local government agendas, and one of the most debated.

There are about 710 data centers operating in the United States and more than 1,000 additional projects planned, according to figures the research firm Cleanview shared with Reuters. These facilities are the physical backbone of the cloud services and artificial intelligence tools people use every day. They also represent one of the largest waves of capital investment in the country right now, and they draw large amounts of electricity, water, and land. When one is proposed near a neighborhood, the promise and the pressure both become local very quickly.Residents hold genuinely mixed views. In a June 2026 Reuters/Ipsos poll of more than 4,500 adults, only one in three said building data centers at a rapid pace is mainly a good thing, and 57% said they would oppose one in their own community. Yet, other surveys find that many of the same residents also recognize real benefits, from jobs and tax revenue to stronger digital infrastructure. The picture is not one-sided, which is exactly what makes it hard to govern.

What data centers can bring

The case for data centers usually starts with investment. Construction spending on these facilities reached an annualized rate of about $59 billion in May 2026, according to Census Bureau data, making them one of the fastest-growing pieces of nonresidential construction. A single large project can generate real local activity. A 2025 study of a proposed data center in Ohio estimated nearly 9,700 construction jobs during the build phase, about $1 billion added to state GDP, and roughly $84 million a year in state and local taxes.

Tax revenue is often the clearest local benefit. In Richland Parish, Louisiana, sales-tax revenue tied to a large Meta campus helped the school board raise full-time teacher bonuses to about $50,900 in 2026, up from about $10,200 the year before, as reported by the Center for Data Innovation. Supporters also point out that data centers can fund new grid and water infrastructure, and that when regulators require them to pay their full cost of service, they can hold down rather than raise costs for other customers.

The benefits are real, but researchers caution they are often smaller and less evenly spread than recruitment pitches suggest. A 2026 Georgia Tech study found that metropolitan areas capture most of the economic gains, while rural counties saw only a small drop in unemployment and little measurable spillover. Data centers also tend to employ relatively few permanent workers once they are built. In short, the upside is genuine, but how much a specific community actually captures depends on the deal and the location.

What they ask of a community

The concerns are just as concrete. In 2023, data centers used roughly 176 terawatt hours of electricity, about 4.4% of the national total, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and utility demand forecasts have climbed sharply as artificial intelligence grows. Cooling the servers takes water. A single large facility can use up to 5 million gallons a day, comparable to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people, and the World Resources Institute reports that two-thirds of the data centers built or in development since 2022 sit in water-stressed regions. The buildings themselves can span hundreds of acres, sometimes more than a thousand, which raises questions about land use, noise, and farmland.

Here the data gets genuinely contested. One 2026 Rutgers University study of more than 2,000 data centers across 24 states found no clearly detectable link between new data center openings and higher resident electricity bills to date. Other analyses point to grid regions where wholesale power costs rose steeply as large new loads connected. Virginia's legislative audit commission described the state's data center water use as currently sustainable, even as residents near stressed aquifers push for limits. Industry efficiency has improved, with average power usage effectiveness falling from about 2.5 in 2007 to roughly 1.5 today, and analysts note that only about 50-60% of announced capacity tends to come online on schedule, so some forecasts likely overstate the buildout.

The honest summary is that reasonable people read the same figures and reach different conclusions. That is not a reason to tune out the debate. It is a reason to find out what your own community actually weighs, and how.

The decision has moved to the local level

Faster than almost any recent land use issue, data centers have become a matter for city halls and county boards. Many communities are using temporary moratoriums to pause new applications while they write rules, and one national tracker counted roughly four times as many local pauses in 2026 as in the prior year. Others are actively courting the investment with incentives. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Hyperscale Data Center Act in May 2026, which bars utilities from passing data center costs on to residential and small-business ratepayers, adds aquifer protections, and preserves the right of local governments to set stricter standards, approve a project, or turn it down. The common thread is that the choice, and the responsibility, now sit locally.

The loud room is not the whole community

Every one of those decisions tends to start with a packed meeting. A full room is a signal worth listening to. But it is not the same as knowing what the whole community thinks.

The people who show up, whether to support a project or to oppose it, are self-selected. National polling shows the community picture is more layered than any single hearing suggests. The same surveys that reveal real unease also show that many residents see opportunity, and that people weigh different things. Some focus on the environment, some on their monthly bills, some on jobs and the tax base.

For a local leader, that gap is the whole problem. Decide based only on the loudest room and you are still guessing about everyone who stayed home. For a choice this large and this lasting, a guess is not enough.

What to measure instead of guess

The way through is to replace assumptions with evidence: resident input that is structured, representative, and visible to everyone. A few practical moves make the difference, and none of them require taking a side.

Start with a shared baseline

Before the debate turns to opinion, ground it in facts about your own community. Polco's Track Dashboards pull objective local data on utilities, land use, the natural environment, and the local economy from trusted public sources, so the conversation starts from the same numbers rather than competing talking points.

Take a representative read

A scientific Benchmark Survey such as The National Community Survey measures how residents across the whole community feel about the natural environment, utilities, and growth. The National Business Survey adds the perspective of local employers on infrastructure and the business climate. Together they show what the community thinks, not only who attended.

Move quickly when a specific project appears

A short pulse survey or poll can capture a fast pulse check the moment a proposal goes public, which is often when interest runs highest.

Surface the tradeoffs

This is where Prioritize helps. Instead of asking residents only whether they support a project, you can ask them to rank what matters most under real constraints, weighing the benefits they want to capture, such as jobs, tax revenue, or new infrastructure, against the protections they want in place, such as limits on water use, rate safeguards, or buffers from homes. The result is a ranked set of priorities that reflects the tradeoffs a community is actually willing to make.

Bring it together in one place

An Engagement Page can host the background, the poll, the survey, the prioritization exercise, and the results in a single hub, then show residents how their input shaped the outcome. That visible feedback loop is what turns a tense hearing into a process people can trust.

Finding the answer, not steering it

Data centers are not going away, and neither is the debate about them. The demand is real, the investment is real, and so are the questions about power, water, and land. Different communities will weigh those factors differently, and that is exactly as it should be.

Polco's role here is deliberately neutral. The tools above are built to reveal what your residents actually think, across the whole community and not just its loudest corner, so that leaders can make a decision that fits their community and back it with evidence. They are not built to push anyone toward yes or toward no.

The communities that handle this well will be the ones that gather evidence early, listen past the loudest voice in the room, and show residents that their input counted. That is how a flashpoint becomes a decision people can live with, even when they do not all agree.

If you want to see what representative resident input on a growth decision looks like in practice, Request a Demo. You can also Try Polco Free to explore the platform on your own.

What the National Business Survey Reveals That Resident Surveys Can't

Polco — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:47:46 GMT

A community can earn high marks from the people who live there and still be quietly losing the employers who keep it running. Both things can be true at the same time. Residents may rate the local economy as healthy because they have a job, a short commute, and shops nearby. Meanwhile, the business owner down the street may be struggling to fill open roles, waiting weeks on a permit, or deciding whether to renew a lease at all.

That gap matters. Most local governments listen closely to residents, and they should. But residents and businesses experience the same community in very different ways. If you only hear from one, you only see half of your local economy.

This is where The National Business Survey (NBS) earns its place next to The National Community Survey (NCS). One captures how people feel about living in your community. The other captures whether your community works as a place to operate, hire, and grow.

What resident surveys capture well

The NCS is Polco's flagship resident survey. It measures resident perceptions across ten livability domains, including economy, mobility, safety, education, and community design, using 123 metrics and scientific sampling. On the economy, it tells you how residents view job opportunities, the overall business environment, and economic development where they live.

That view is valuable, and it is real. But it is a resident's view. Residents rate the economy mostly from the outside. They experience it as workers, shoppers, and neighbors. They can tell you whether the community feels prosperous. They usually cannot tell you why a manufacturer cannot find welders, or whether the permitting process is quietly pushing a developer to build one town over.

What businesses see that residents don't

Employers hold a different set of facts. They know how hard it is to hire for the skills they need. They know whether local regulations and taxes help them or slow them down. They know which roads, utilities, and services their operations depend on every day. And they know whether they plan to expand here, hold steady, or leave.

The NBS is built to surface exactly that. It gathers statistically representative feedback from local businesses across four focus areas:

Business climate. The local economy, the ease of doing business, and the regulatory environment.
Community amenities. The public infrastructure, utilities, and services that commerce depends on.
Employment and workforce. Talent availability, workforce skills, and job growth.
Governance and policy. Government support, tax policy, and business-friendly regulation.

Because the NBS uses representative sampling across business types, sizes, and sectors, it gives leaders something a single chamber meeting or a handful of loud voices cannot: a defensible read of what the whole business community actually experiences. You can also add custom questions on local issues like permitting satisfaction, workforce housing, broadband, or supply chain, and benchmark your results against a national dataset.

Why the two surveys are stronger together

The point is not to choose between residents and businesses. It is to see your community through both lenses at once.

Laguna Beach, California, is a clear example. The city ran the NCS and the NBS in the same year. Residents reported a very high quality of life, with especially strong ratings for economic health. On its face, that looks like an economy in great shape.

The business responses told the rest of the story. Owners rated the community highly overall, but many worried about keeping their businesses running in the future. Limited affordable housing, workplace parking, and affordable childcare made it hard to support a full workforce. Business owners also said the city could do more to retain existing businesses, attract new ones, and support new jobs. Same economy. Two very different vantage points. Only together did they give leaders a full picture to act on.

The complementary value shows up in planning, too. In Cape Coral, Florida, residents flagged the economy as their top priority on the NCS. The city responded with an incentive and grant program to attract and diversify local business. Over the next few years, economy-related ratings on the NCS climbed, with economic health up 14 percent and the quality of local businesses up 21 percent between 2019 and 2021. Resident input pointed to the priority. Business-focused strategy and investment moved the numbers.

What you can do with business insight

When you hear directly and credibly from employers, you can act with more confidence. The NBS is built to support:

Economic development strategy. Guide business retention and recruitment with real data instead of anecdotes.
Policy and program advocacy. Give chambers and councils credible evidence they can stand behind.
Investment planning. Inform the capital improvements and public services that businesses rely on.

Benchmarking adds one more layer. It lets you see whether your business climate is keeping pace with peer communities, and whether the initiatives you launch are actually working over time.

Two answers your budget depends on

Residents will tell you whether your community is a good place to live. Businesses will tell you whether it is a good place to work, hire, and grow. Both answers shape your budget, your policies, and your economic future. Hearing only one leaves a blind spot you cannot afford.

The National Business Survey and The National Community Survey were built to work together. Used side by side, they turn a partial view of your economy into a complete one.

Ready to hear from every part of your community? Request a demo to see how Polco's benchmark surveys can give you the full picture.