The Dakota County Residential Survey provides residents an opportunity to rate the quality of life in the county as well as service delivery and their satisfaction with county government. The survey also gives residents an avenue to provide feedback to the county about what is working well and what is not, and to share their priorities for the county.
When conducting residential surveys, Dakota County forms a partnership with several other counties, which cuts costs and allows real-time comparisons with similar organizations that serve demographically similar residents.
2022 Residential Survey
2019 Residential Survey
2016 Residential Survey
2013 Residential Survey
2011 Residential Survey
2008 Residential Survey
2025 Residential Survey
In early 2025, Dakota County conducted another round of the Residential Survey. The executive summary of the survey results is now available.
2025 Residential Survey
2025 Residential Survey - Executive Summary
Special Focus Residential Survey
In the fall of 2015, Dakota County designed a residential survey intended to solicit data to support efforts by staff and consultants to prepare a long-range plan for visitor services and operations in parks and trails countywide. While county staff already have access to survey data gathered from people as they visit Dakota County Parks, this survey was intended to solicit views of park services, programs, and facilities from all residents, including those who are not frequent visitors.
In fall 2014, Dakota County designed a residential survey that was limited in length and scope compared to the usual residential surveys. The survey focused only on topics of residents’ attitudes towards recycling, transit use and use of parks and preferred activities in parks.
As is usual practice for all other residential surveys, the addresses to which these two surveys were sent were drawn randomly from a U.S. Postal Service mailing list. These special focus residential survey used similar methodology to all other residential surveys conducted by Dakota County over the last two decades.
2014 Special Focus Residential Survey
2015 Park Visitor Survey