United States of America

Burlington, VT

Live Report

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An up-to-date picture of what the public is thinking, based on responses from verified residents across the city.

Engagements · 30 days

September 21, 2026Report 00

Based on answers from 55 Burlington residents during the pilot, collected April 1, 2025 to May 25, 2025. Updated every two weeks.

Representation score

Timeframe55 days

City summary

Most of those who answered said housing costs are too high, with rents and homes leaving people worried they cannot stay. About a quarter said car-free travel is hard, with buses rarely convenient and biking on city streets unsafe. About one in six said local pay falls short, with jobs not covering the cost of living and Main Street businesses facing construction. About as many said downtown feels unsafe, and some no longer go there.

AI-generated summary of resident responses. Every quote card below uses residents’ exact words.

In this report:

Most Tagged Issues 1Housing53%2Economy25%3Transportation24%4Safety22%5Health16%

Resident Ideas Total Ideas & Proposals4

Top Themes 1🏠Housing is too expensive and too scarce 2🚌Buses, bikes and walking lose out to cars 3⚠️Burlington streets and downtown feel unsafe 4🏪Local businesses and jobs are struggling 5💸Property taxes are too high for incomes

Appreciations Total Appreciations3

Most Tagged Issues

Residents are invited to submit open-ended text responses. These are anonymous, but we verify that each comes from a real person. We read every response, add up to three tags for the issues it covers, and ask the resident to confirm we got the tags right.

Based on 55Respondents collected over 55Days:

Tap an issue for details.

#1Housing53%#2Economy25%#3Transportation24%#4Safety22%#5Health16%#6Environment16%#7Education9%#8Neighborhood9%#9Other9%#10Families7%#11Rights5%#12Spaces2%

Each bar is the share of respondents whose answer was tagged with that issue. An answer can carry up to three tags, so the bars can add up to more than 100%.

Top Themes

We select quotes that capture residents' main points, then group similar quotes by theme. Each theme includes the original quotes, so you can read them, cite them, and see what the theme is based on.

#1 ThemeRaised by 56% of respondents

Housing is too expensive and too scarce

Housing costs are too high, choices are too few, and renters fear they cannot stay.

Housing

What people are saying:

👨Early 30s ManinWard 5

Quote

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Housing is too expensive

IDWNAD66TR

👩Early 30s WomaninWard 6

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Housing costs are out of control, make me worried about my continued ability to rent in this area and to afford a house

IDZT0FAYV3

👨Early 50s ManinWard 4

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Housing prices in the community are unsustainable. As is the current tax base.

ID8B7DP3X3

👨Mid 30s ManinWard 5

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Housing is important to me because the high cost and lack of options keeps me and my partner stuck at a specific point in our lives, unable to move on to the next chapter. We’ve been stuck in a very small (500sqft) 1-bedroom apartment for almost 5 years now, with the rent constantly pushing up ($1500/mo when we moved in there in 2020, $1750/mo now).

IDD5X4R1BT

🧑Early 30s Nonbinary PersoninWard 5

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collectively make over $250,000 which means that we are fortunate enough to be able to afford Burlington prices, however even with making this much we would not be able to afford a house in Burlington. We have so many friends and neighbors who are in debt, priced out of their housing, have absent or actively harmful landlords, etc. I believe the visibility of homelessness in Burlington is a direct symptom of the lack of affordable housing in our community.

IDNTAKSNTD

👩Late 20s WomaninWard 7

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Access to housing has always been incredibly difficult with high rent costs & houses that have mold. I’ve been sick for a long time living in the ONE with mold issues / a bad landlord and only know am feeling better living in a new home.

IDTGXH665B

#2 ThemeRaised by 20% of respondents

Buses, bikes and walking lose out to cars

Buses are rarely convenient, bike routes feel unsafe, and some bus stops are hard to reach.

Transportation

What people are saying:

👩Late 50s Woman

Quote

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I loved when all city public transportation was free-bring this back and add more routes with more frequent rides. This will help with congestion and parking issues as well as be environmentally friendly.

IDB65PQA5K

👨Mid 30s ManinWard 5

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Also, we need to aggressively shift away from cars, because it is making our city louder, more polluted, more dangerous, and more *expensive* to live in. Walking, cycling, and public transit are far more accessible and affordable than driving, and yet they are all being marginalized in favor of driving. The mode share of driving is going up while others are going down, regardless of how DPW tries to spin it. We also need a lot more people in Burlington to achieve a truly urban economy, because as it

IDX48F3BHN

👩Mid 30s WomaninWard 2

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Invest in bus infrastructure as a top priority! As for me, I’d be happy to go a little out of my way to take the bus most places that I currently drive to, but the bus is rarely convenient. If the need for bus lines is only determined based on who’s already taking the bus, I hope we can change that. If they build it, we will come.

IDHTXA2FCB

👨Late 20s ManinWard 5

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Lack of useful busses and no late night transit

ID1G6ET615

👨Early 30s ManinWard 7

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I don't own a car currently, so I've been biking, walking, and using Carshare Vermont to get around. This generally works well, but I wish I felt safer biking on many streets in the city. Bike lanes that are narrow, or end suddenly, or streets without any bike lanes -- these make me nervous when riding in traffic.

IDYKWCD8F0

👩Late 30s WomaninWard 8

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Transportation: I have a mobility disability and right now my closest bus stop not only doesn’t have a bench, it also has no sidewalk leading up to it—you have to scramble down a grassy slope that I almost slipped on when it was muddy or wet.

ID7SZ6JRAF

#3 ThemeRaised by 16% of respondents

Burlington streets and downtown feel unsafe

Burlington streets, bike routes, and downtown feel unsafe for riders, children, and families.

Safety Transportation

What people are saying:

👩Late 60s WomaninWard 5

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Safety because people are nervous about going down town burlington.

IDCXJ2KEA4

👨Mid 30s ManinWard 8

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Going up College street is pretty scary on a bike. The potholes pretty much destroy the bike lane.

ID60MHZAFF

Burlington ResidentinWard 3

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The pain and suffering and loss of life in the Burlington streets.

IDJ5NKAM79

👨Late 50s ManinWard 6

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The state of downtown. Strangers offering kids rides. Graffiti. Drug deals happening in the open. Lack of housing. Lack of police.

IDJXETDJ99

👨Mid 50s ManinWard 5

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my biggest concern in Burlington is antisocial behavior from people who have addiction problems, and other forms of unmanaged homelessness. Whike I do believe that as a society we need to help people who are unable to house themselves, antisocial behavior should not be tolerated.

IDGBW8SRQV

👴Senior ManinWard 7

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Taxes are too high. Services have gone to hell. Downtown is an out-of-bounds place - we don’t go there for ANYTHING. Make Burlington a livable Vermont town again.

IDKC2K5C0X

#4 ThemeRaised by 16% of respondents

Local businesses and jobs are struggling

Local businesses are struggling while local jobs and salaries do not cover Burlington's high cost of living.

Economy

What people are saying:

👨Mid 40s ManinWard 5

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Affordable housing continues to be a major concern for our city, and making sure we have a diverse population of citizens here. The national economy is a major concern, but also concern over our local economy; it feels like local businesses are struggling, and that Burlington hasn't really found an economic identity. Public safety is ongoing with concerns over the homeless and drug usage, and what the best way to treat these problems humanely is.

IDTSHCRFT1

👨Early 30s ManinWard 6

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I'm very worried about our Main Street businesses given the ongoing construction. They are important members of the the city community and their closure due to limited/burdensome access would be terrible shame.

ID8NHD444K

👨Mid 30s ManinWard 5

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Economy is important because it is very difficult to find local jobs that cover the cost of living in Burlington. I spent 3 months last year looking for work as my primary task, and ended up only with a part time non-profit job that doesn’t fully cover my monthly expenses.

ID1ZJ7CRPV

👩Late 60s WomaninWard 5

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Concerned about economics as salaries are low but cost of living to high.

IDZVYRTGAH

#5 ThemeRaised by 13% of respondents

Property taxes are too high for incomes

Property taxes and living costs are too high for the salaries available here.

Economy

What people are saying:

👩Late 60s WomaninWard 5

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Property taxes to high for salaries in vermont

IDN0YP022E

👴Senior ManinWard 7

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Taxes are too high. Services have gone to hell. Downtown is an out-of-bounds place - we don’t go there for ANYTHING. Make Burlington a livable Vermont town again.

IDMAPC2K06

👩Early 50s WomaninWard 5

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As a single woman, property taxes are a burden.

IDAHTQ9HKW

Stories

A few responses we chose because they tell a particularly compelling or insightful story about life in Burlington.

🧑Early 30s Nonbinary PersoninWard 5

Story

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A housing story: my partner and I moved to Burlington in August of 2024 from the Adirondacks (NY). Since relocating we have already had to move again. I should also mention that it took us over 6 months to find an initial place to move that met our needs. We first moved into an older house that was functional but in need of essential repairs to make it more livable (replacing the hot water heater, updating baseboard heaters that were not functioning). When we attempted to address these issues with our landlord, instead of making the needed changes she instead decided to sell her house because she “didn’t want to deal with renters or repairing an old house anymore”. She contacted us in December (during Christmas week) and told us she was selling the house and that we had one month to move out. This is a direct violation of Burlington Renter’s rights, which outlines that residents must be given 3 months of notice and that if the landlord is breaking a lease, the next buyer has to honor the current lease contract. Our landlord refused to abide by these rules, instead inticing us to move out and break our lease by offering to pay us $2,000 at closing (upon selling the house). Our repeated requests for her to update the lease with this information were ignored. Our landlord neglected to contact us about multiple maintenance and real estate staff on the property, one of whom broke a lock on our outdoor shed that had all of our outdoor equipment stored in it. We were also forced to move in the middle of February of 2025, some of the coldest and snowiest days of the year.

IDR77ZTVJP

Housing

More voices

A few more quotes worth reading, about topics outside the main themes above.

👨Mid 30s ManinWard 5

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The financial issues with GMT at the state level are worrying; the state seems willing to let one of the only means we have to significantly reducing transportation emissions in chittenden county die, not to mention the importance of increased transportation capacity for economic development and new housing in the region.

ID1T7317A2

👩Mid 30s WomaninWard 2

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They’re most basic to my daily life and my security. I’m in an ok place with all three, but all could be better especially with others in mind; I would prefer to have excellent public transit here, and I want enough housing and resources to go around so no one needs to worry about their basic needs.

IDR0D3J8DV

👩Early 50s Woman

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How can we ensure that our downtown businesses will remain strong and stable and continue to draw the population of people who have plenty of disposable income? How can we ensure that our City remains a city that is both welcoming to others and affordable enough for regular Vermonters to stay here? The way these three issues are or are not addressed in the next few years are going to determine the fate of our City and it's inhabitants.

Appreciation

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The new walk bike path on pine street is amazing!

IDAKVQBSSA

👨Early 40s ManinWard 4

Appreciation

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Road infrastructure is in really bad shape and seems to hard to keep up with. Programming of events is great, so much to do.

IDZX2CWKKP

👨Late 30s ManinWard 5

Appreciation

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I think Burlington is awesome.

IDZJFGGFWK

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