DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03919.v3
title: New York Times New York City Poll, September 2003
title: Version 3

description: This special topic poll, conducted August 31-September 4,
2003, was undertaken to assess respondents' opinions of New York City
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, their views of New York City and the World
Trade Center site, and the impact of the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001. Respondents were asked to give their opinions of Mayor
Bloomberg's overall job performance, his handling of the recovery
efforts following the terrorist attacks of September 11, and the
problems related to the blackout of August 2003. Respondents were polled
on their opinions of Governor George Pataki and former New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, whether they supported non-partisan elections
for New York City officials, and why they believed the Republican party
chose New York City for its 2004 presidential nomination convention.
Respondents were queried on their biggest concern about living in New
York City, whether they wanted to be living within or outside of the
city in four years, why less crime occurred during the blackout in
August 2003 than in the blackout in the summer of 1977, and whether
their image of New York City was positive or negative. Views were sought
on how confident respondents were that the city's economy would fully
recover from the terrorist attacks of September 11, whether the city had
changed as a result of the attacks and in what way, whether these
changes would be permanent, how concerned respondents were about another
terrorist attack in New York City, the likelihood of an attack in the
United States within the next few months, whether the threat of
terrorism was higher in New York City than in other big cities, whether
security measures in New York City airports, subways, bridges, and
tunnels were sufficient, and whether the city was prepared to deal with a
biological or chemical attack. Specific questions about the terrorist
attacks of September 11 polled respondents on whether their lives had
changed as a result of the attacks and in what way, if they were still
dealing with these changes, how often they thought and talked about the
September 11 attacks, whether they or their friends and family knew
someone who was injured or killed in the attacks, if their child reacted
to the attacks by expressing concern for his or her own safety or the
safety of a family member, if respondents considered themselves
patriotic, and if September 11 should be a permanent holiday.
Respondents were also asked if in the weeks following the attacks they
were more or less likely to participate in activities such as attending
religious services and riding the subway, and if they continued to do
so. Information was gathered on whether respondents had visited Ground
Zero, how closely they followed the debate on what to build at the site,
if they were in favor of the new buildings and the permanent memorial
planned, if they felt that development efforts were moving too quickly
or too slowly, and whether they would work in or visit a high floor of a
new building on the site. Additional questions addressed George W.
Bush's handling of his job as president, if the federal government was
doing enough since September 11 to protect New York City from terrorist
attacks and help the city to recover financially, how confident
respondents were that the government would capture or kill Osama Bin
Laden, whether government warnings about possible terrorist attacks had
been useful or harmful and how respondents reacted to them, whether Arab
Americans were more sympathetic to terrorists compared to other American
citizens, and if immigrants from the Middle East were being unfairly
singled out. Background variables include age, marital status,
ethnicity, education, religion, religious attendance, employment status,
household income, voting status, political orientation, political
ideology, borough of residence, if the respondent was living in or was
physicallyin New York City on September 11, 2001, if their family's
financial situation was better or worse today than two years ago, if the
respondent was a parent or guardian of a child under 18 living in the
same residence, and if the respondent knew someone who was an immigrant
from an Arab country.
description: A variation of random-digit dialing 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. 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).
description: Datasets: 
DS1: New York Times New York City Poll, September 2003
description: Adult population of New York City aged 18 and over having a
telephone at home.
description: This collection has not been processed by ICPSR
staff. ICPSR is distributing the data and documentation for this
collection in essentially the same form in which they were
received. When appropriate, documentation has been converted to
Portable Document Format (PDF), data files have been converted to
non-platform-specific formats, and variables have been recoded to
ensure respondents' anonymity.The ASCII data file may have been replaced if the previous version was formatted with multiple records per case. A frequency file, which contains the authoritative column locations, has been added to the collection.