Guåhan 2050 Sustainability Plan – Measuring Resident Priorities for Guam’s Long-Term Future

Service: Public Opinion & Community Research
Sector: Government

The Challenge

The Guåhan 2050 Sustainability Plan was being developed to guide Guam’s long-term approach to growth, land use, sustainability, and quality of life. But the planning process faced a fundamental question its existing information could not answer: What did residents actually want?

The choices involved genuine trade-offs. Finite land, a sole-source aquifer, and an exposed coastline placed physical constraints on future development. At the same time, a housing shortage, challenges within the visitor economy, and the continued departure of working-age residents created pressure for growth and investment.

Community engagement conducted to that point had relied primarily on meetings, workshops, and forums. While valuable for understanding the perspectives of engaged participants, those methods could not establish how widely particular views were shared across Guam’s broader population.

For a plan intended to guide policy for decades, that distinction mattered. The planning process needed representative evidence that could test the themes emerging from community engagement, identify where residents agreed and disagreed, and establish a defensible baseline for future decision-making.

The Approach

MR&D designed and executed a population-representative residential survey as the concluding quantitative component of a broader community engagement program.

Approximately 700 adult residents were interviewed using computer-assisted telephone interviewing. The sample incorporated both mobile and fixed-line numbers through a combination of published and random-digit-dial sampling, with interviews conducted from MR&D’s regional calling facility.

The resulting sample was systematically benchmarked against the most recent decennial census across age, gender, household composition, income, residency, and ethnicity. Age was weighted to correct an observed sample skew, while remaining differences between the sample and population were documented transparently.

The questionnaire was structured around the planning initiative’s established pillars and designed to test trade-offs rather than simply measure agreement with broadly desirable goals.

Open-ended questions gave residents an opportunity to identify priorities in their own words, while subgroup analysis by generation, income, and region allowed planners to understand where attitudes converged and where meaningful differences existed.

By testing themes raised through earlier qualitative engagement across a representative resident sample, MR&D provided the quantitative evidence needed to distinguish widely held priorities from perspectives that were simply more visible during the public engagement process.

The Outcome

The research organized resident priorities into four decision frames: limits, balance, renewal, and equity. These frames gave planners a practical structure for translating public sentiment into policy.

Residents expressed clear preferences for protecting the island’s physical and cultural assets. Development over the aquifer and along the coastline drew support for greater restriction, while conservation was generally prioritized over additional commercial construction. Scenic and cultural resources were also viewed as assets to protect.

At the same time, the findings did not indicate blanket opposition to growth. Residents favored development appropriate to the character and scale of individual villages and preferred tourism investment focused on improving existing assets and the visitor experience rather than expanding hotel and retail development.

Infrastructure emerged as another important condition for future growth. Residents favored an infrastructure-first approach in which essential systems—including water, power, sewer, and roads—are in place before additional development proceeds.

The survey also identified strong support for affordable and mixed housing and broad support for renewable energy. Cost of living emerged as the principal factor residents associated with the departure of younger people from the island.

Together, the findings established a representative baseline of community priorities that planners could use to evaluate long-term policy choices and measure how resident attitudes change over time.

At a Glance

700

Residents Interviewed

4 Decision Frames
Limits, Balance, Renewal, & Equity

6 Census Dimensions
Sample Representatives Assessed

MR&D Capabilities Demonstrated

Quantitative Research • Data & Demographic Analysis • Stakeholder & Community Engagement • Market Research