Assessing generalized community satisfaction

ABSTRACT. The assessment of community satisfaction as a global concept has until now been based on measures that in various ways have been inadequate. In the present study, alternative approaches to devising community satisfaction scales were reviewed and a new General Community Satisfaction Scale (GCSS) was presented. Results from factor analyses of data obtained in two divergent communities, with sample sizes of 622 and 385, respectively, vindicated the measure in the context of a diversity of other measures assessing more specific community attributes. The GCSS was shown to be highly reliable with an alpha coefficient value of .97 in each community and to have a high degree of concurrent validity.