DOI: 10.3886/icpsr34468.v1
title: CBS News/New York Times New York City Poll, August #2, 2011
title: Version 1

description: This poll, fielded August 2011, and the second of four, is part of a continuing series of monthly surveys that solicit public opinion on a range of political and social issues. This particular poll surveyed respondents living in New York City. Respondents were asked their opinion on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's job performance and whether they approved of his handling of the public school system. Respondents were also queried on general aspects of their lives in New York City, including opinions on their long range view of the city's livability, opinions on the city's economy, whether they had plans to relocate, and whether they held a good or bad image of the city. Respondents were also asked to provide opinions on the state of New York City public schools, including views on the New York City teachers union and charter schools, assessments of the overall quality of public education, whether quality had improved under Mayor Bloomberg, and whether they approved of Dennis Walcott's job performance as school system Chancellor. The poll also features several questions related to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. Respondents were asked whether security initiatives implemented following the terrorist attacks had enhanced public safety at New York City airports, bridges, tunnels, subways and nuclear power plants in the region. Further opinions were solicited on whether respondents felt New Yorkers had recovered economically and emotionally from the attacks, whether first responders and families of victims had been treated fairly, and whether the killing of Osama bin Laden had provided a sense of closure and increased safety. Furthermore, respondents were asked to gauge the likelihood of another attack within the upcoming months, whether they felt safe or endangered living in New York City, and whether they perceived the threat of terrorism to be higher in New York City when compared to other United States cities. Further information was collected regarding respondents feelings toward Muslims following the September 11th attacks, whether respondents believed Muslims are unfairly singled out, and whether they believed Muslims and Arab Americans are more sympathetic to terrorists than other American citizens. Additional topics included the possible opening of Wal-Mart stores within New York City, the planned redevelopment of the site at Ground Zero, and the proposed mosque and Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero. Demographic information included sex, age, race, marital status, education level, household income, religious preference, political party affiliation, political philosophy, and voter registration status.
description: The data contain a weight variable that should be used in analyzing the data. According to the CBS News Web site, the data were weighted to match United States Census Bureau breakdowns on age, sex, race, education, and region of the country. The data were also adjusted for the fact that people who share a telephone with others have less chance to be contacted than people who live alone and have their own telephones, and that households with more than one telephone number have more chances to be called than households with only one telephone number.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: CBS News/New York Times Poll Series
description: telephone interview
description: Persons aged 18 years and older with telephones living in New York City. Smallest Geographic Unit: New York City borough
description: A variation of random-digit dialing (RDD) using primary sampling units (PSUs) was employed, consisting of blocks of 100 telephone numbers identical through the eighth digit and stratified by geographic region, area code, and size of place. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. Within households, respondents were selected using a method developed by Leslie Kish and modified by Charles Backstrom and Gerald Hursh (see Backstrom and Hursh, SURVEY RESEARCH. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963).