How to Rate Your Neighborhood

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⭐ What is this?

You've rated matcha spots, gig venues, the Taj Mahal and your dentist. Now it’s time to get some real intel on your neighborhood. We have designed a survey which helps us understand how people feel about where they live - their happiness, sense of safety, local infrastructure, and economic reality.

The primary objective of this survey is to go out there and talk to people with diverse incomes, jobs, and backgrounds and find out what their lives in 2026 India are like.

BONUS: All the data we collect is going to be put up on a website and made public! CLICK HERE!

👷🏾 Who do you survey?

Try to cover some of these groups - aim for a minimum of three surveys, but feel free to do more! We want information from the following categories of people:

  1. Family members
  2. Friends
  3. Neighbors
  4. Local business owners
  5. Friendly strangers
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MEGA IMPORTANT NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS ALONE. Take a friend along, or your mom, or an enthu-cutlet sibling. This is more fun as a group activity and give you a sense of confidence + safety.

👯 Why does this survey matter?

You can see things are going wrong and you are frustrated (as you should be). The political system isn't working for most people and, as a citizen, that is sucking out hope from your soul. So what can you actually do about it?

Social movements need people who are active, connected, and organised—not just chronically online, but connecting in real life. We think change has to start at the smallest unit: your neighborhood. And before anything can get better, someone has to actually find out what people are going through and the problems they face on a daily basis.

That someone is you. So get out there.

🤓 How does it work?
SURVEY PHASE
  1. All survey questions are in this form.
  2. Approach a person in your neighborhood and have a friendly chat with them, while filling this survey.
  3. DO NOT note their name, only their age and gender. Keep the responders anonymous pls.
  4. Don’t forget to enter the latitude + longitude of the place where you did the survey. [Insert Tutorial Video]
  5. Each surveyor will be asked to put in their name, phone number and email in the form before they submit it. This information is for DATA VALIDATION purposes only. It will NOT be shared with a spam company or anyone else. Pinky promise.
TROUBLESHOOTING
  1. Approach the respondent (with your companion(s)) and introduce yourself politely first. Get their consent for the survey before you begin.
  2. Check out the helpful script & talking points we have made for you below ↓. This is for all the awkward penguin nerdfriends out there. We feel you <3.
  3. If internet connectivity is an issue, print the paper based version of this form. But please input the data into the google form eventually when you do have internet access.
  4. We recommend you do some basic research on who your potential respondents could be. Involve your parents in this exercise, or someone who knows the neighborhood.
NEED QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY
  1. Each question is designed to be a conversation starter. Encourage specific answers from the multiple choice options provided. Add any insightful thoughts shared by respondents in the text box after each question.
  2. We are aiming for QUALITY data, not QUANTITY. Nobody is getting a medal for doing MORE surveys. But you might just get a personal call from meghnerd if you give us BEST survey responses.
  3. Once all questions are answered, there's a final text box for anything else respondents want to share that’s outside the syllabus.
  4. One box in the end is about why they love their locality. Please encourage them to think about it and put in extra effort to answer this one.
NOTES ON POLITENESS
  1. Survey is in English, but use a language the respondents are comfortable with.
  2. Seek consent before you begin. Tell them their data will be anonymous and you are NOT collecting their name.
  3. Don’t forget to thank them for their time after you’re done.
  4. After you've finished your surveys, try to fill in the surveyor feedback box: what surprised you? What went well? What sucked? What do you want to do better next time? (This one is not mandatory, but it would really help us understand you better as well.)
👀 "But what about talking to strangers?!"

It’s a totally valid concern. That’s why we recommend taking your parent, friend or sibling along on this ride.

But honestly, in our humble experience, a lot of people are happy to talk about the problems in their neighborhood. It completely depends on how you approach them and get them to chat. If people don’t want to talk to you, it’s fine, don’t get upset, just move on.

The intro script below will help guide you on how to approach friendly strangers and other responders. Remember to keep it casual and keep it brief. Worst case they say no.

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At the risk of sounding like your overprotective parent who keeps telling you the same thing again and again (omg please stop)…. don’t do this alone. Seriously.

Is there a Deadline?

Should there be a deadline to improve your neighborhood? Or is it a continuous process?

We are designing this is a project with the intention that it is going to continue and churn out data in real-time. You will be able to track the progress on the Rate Your Neighborhood website [Insert link here] and decide for yourself whether you want this to continue.

Who knows, you might use this tool to do quarterly surveys for yourself & try to fix the problems in your neighborhood once you find out about them. Who knows these things. Life is a mystery.

But on our end, we are launching this project in mid-June 2026, and keeping a one month deadline to re-evaluate and decide whether its working. In mid-July, we will give you a full report on what happened, was it useful and what we plan to do with it.

If it yields no meaningful results, then its back to the drawing board for us to do it better. The project will evolve overtime & change objectives. But we want to do this democratically with you, my friendly nerdy surveyors.

I have some Feedback on how to make it better

For larger quantity quality feedback, please email on meghnerd@gmail.com.

OR schedule a 1-1 meghnerd helpline call: https://bit.ly/nerdy-helpline

SAMPLE SCRIPT
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Use this when approaching someone. You can read it aloud or adapt it slightly, just keep the key elements intact to ensure best responses.

"Hi! My name is [your name] and I live in this area. I'm part of a local research project trying to better understand how people in our neighborhood are actually doing. Can I get 10 minutes of your time?

[WAIT FOR RESPONSE]

We want to talk to you about problems in our neighborhood: like safety, infrastructure, economic opportunities, and overall wellbeing. This is completely independent and not connected to any political party or company. We will NOT collect your name, just your views on this area.

The data will be used to build a picture of what life is really like across different neighborhoods in India [You can show them the website]. It will show up on this website we made. You can see it too! Would you like to continue?

[WAIT FOR EXCITEMENT TO BUILD]

Thank you for agreeing to do this! Please feel free to skip any question you don't want to answer, and you can stop at any time. No hard feelings. There are no right or wrong answers, we just want your honest experience. Should I start asking the questions now?"

👍  If they say yes: great, go ahead! Start asking questions

😶 If they hesitate: "It's totally fine to say no - no pressure at all.”

🤗 If they say no: “thank you!” and move on.

Shareable Form QR Code + link

LINK: bit.ly/RYN-form

Rate Your Hood survey form QR code