Wonder

Research Outline

Prepared for Cathi D. | Delivered March 30, 2021

Downtown Waco, Texas: Local Sentiment Research

Goals

To have a broad understanding of how local people feel about downtown Waco, Texas. An ideal response would include sentiment from the people who live there sharing what they like and don't like about spending time in downtown Waco to shop, dine, and play. The time frame for this can be from the last 36 months. This should not include how tourists feel.

Early Findings

During this initial hour, the focus was on locating information from the past 36 months surrounding how the people who live in Waco, Texas feel about their downtown area. We relied heavily on qualitative data, as there are not any quantitative studies or research on this topic. What we found is that there was somewhat limited credible data on how locals feel about the downtown area specifically. Most of the sources found focused on Waco as a whole, but there were some insightful findings nonetheless. Below please see our results from the initial hour of research.
General Data"Varied efforts to promote a growing downtown Waco are shaping up with two broad audiences in mind: locals and visitors. City staffers, downtown advocates and Magnolia executives that are trying to reach locals are focused on maintaining a sense of belonging and countering pessimism, even if the parking spot three steps from the restaurant’s door is no longer a guaranteed get."
"Local residents, not tourists, are the primary audience for City Center Waco’s website, downtownwacotx.com, which provides a similarly broad range of information about downtown events, businesses and restaurants but with locals in mind."
"Providing information about what downtown offers and what is new there also may correct feelings [experienced by locals] that tourists are taking over."
"There is a perception among some downtown residents and business owners that Magnolia Market’s success may be dissuading locals from coming downtown, because of increased traffic and difficulty in parking."
 Some of the changes happening in town, and the attitudes driving them, have raised hackles. “You’re not saving a neighborhood because you got there,” a longtime resident told the writer of this article. “Just because it’s not what you lived in, doesn’t mean it's worse, or bad.”
Positive Sentiment Niche combines rigorous analysis with authentic reviews to highlight the best schools, companies, and neighborhoods. Each review states whether the user is a current resident of Waco or not. When looking at what they have provided for Waco, Texas we found many locals had provided their opinions. One Niche user stated this 19 days ago: "Waco is a great little city for a college town. Everything you need is relatively close. Though there is not much to do for fun, Austin is not too far which is a good visit. One thing I would change is the highway and roads which makes navigation a little difficult when trying to cross the interstate."
One month ago, another Niche user stated this: "Waco is a very interesting place that has allowed for me to find some of the best friends and make some of the best memories that I could have ever asked for from my time in college. There are so many cool shops, hole in the wall restaurants and fun things to do in this city."
Also, from one month ago: "Waco is a great little town that has a wonderful family feel. There is plenty to do and the town continues to grow rapidly. While the public schools are not great, Waco is a great place for young adults or people looking to retire. It is a quaint small town, yet still within a couple hours of Austin and Dallas. There are many unique businesses and restaurants that cannot be found anywhere else."
From 5 months ago: "I was born and raised in Waco. It is big but not too big. It has grown massively in the past couple of years. It is a safe environment with many places to eat, shop, and some of the best private schools in Texas."
From 7 months ago: "I love the small town feel of Waco with bigger city amenities. I was born and raised here and have always enjoyed living here. There seems to be activities for just about everyone. Activities like kayaking on the Brazos river or going out to dinner and finding live music."
From 9 months ago: "Downtown Waco is very scenic. It's best to be out and about at night. The Baylor Bridge is especially beautiful at night. We also have a lot of restaurants." 
From 11 months ago: "I've lived in Waco my whole life. A lot has changed in the last 5 years, mostly due to Magnolia Market. Downtown is beautiful and there are amazing local shops and vendors. It's a great college town with an awesome park and a good place to put down your roots."
From January 2020: "Lived here most of my life. We have everything you could want for a rural or suburban life. Usually pet friendly, tons of Starbucks. Places to shop for different needs. Equally family friendly. Two major hospitals in the area. Downtown is looking better now than ever, with a ton of historical places to see and experience. There is a very historical hippodrome and the states oldest church in the area, which is being restored by our countries famous Chip and Joanna Gaines from the Magnolia show. They live here and bring tourists from all over to see their Silos and their new restaurants."
Negative SentimentFrom a Niche user 5 months ago: "It's cool but there really isn't a lot of things to do down here. But if you travel to like Austin, Dallas, or Houston there is a really good view."
From 5 months ago: "I would like to see less violence in the city. More affordable apartments, Better schools, something for the elderly and homeless done. Like beauty and hair cuts every week. A city clean up of trash." 
From 8 months ago: "Waco is a very basic city. It doesn't have a lot of fun entertainment options, but it is slowly becoming bigger downtown."
From 10 months ago: "Waco is a relatively nice place to go if you're old and retired. There's not much to do after a while, things start to get old quickly. Definitely not a place a more younger or adventurous person should stay at. Downtown is pretty dirty as well, but the suburban areas are quiet and ok."
Summary Of Our Early Findings Relevant To The GoalsAs a reminder, Wonder only uses publicly available sources to answer all research questions. We do not do primary research, and we do not have access to paid databases or paywalled reports, but we can cite them in research for reference only [in case purchase is desired]. If that is of interest, that would clearly have to be communicated to us in any reply. However, no indication of paid resources to add value to this research was seen in the discovery phase.
As discussed at the top of this document, there was no quantitative data surrounding this, and very limited qualitative data. In fact, the only credible and reliable source we found that provided verified resident [local] sentiment was the Niche source. We are not suggesting further research surrounding this based on that fact, unless a web scrape from the past 36 months from Niche is desired. We have scoped for that eventuality below.
Please select one or more of the options provided in the proposed scoping section below.