Nutter with (from left) CHCA president Tolis Vardakis, CHBA main street manager Fran O’Donnell and CHBA president Greg Walsh. (Photo by Joel Hoffmann)

A Feb. 5 public opinion poll suggests that a majority of Northwest Philadelphians hold Mayor Nutter and the city in high regard, but Northwest residents are more ambivalent about the city’s future.

Compiled by the Philadelphia Research Initiative, a subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts, the poll found that 67 percent of Northwest Philadelphians have a favorable opinion of the mayor, 65 percent see the city in positive terms and 45 percent believe the city is heading in the “right direction.”

The responses were part of a larger survey of 1600 Philadelphians, who were contacted by phone — 1200 by landline and 400 by cell — between Jan. 2 and Jan. 19.

The Northwest sample comprised 19.56 percent of all survey respondents (313 people) and included the zip codes 19118, 19119, 19120, 19126, 19127, 19128, 19138, 19141, 19144 and 19150.

The margin of error for that sample was plus/minus 6 percent, which means that each figure listed above could be over or under by as much as 6 percent.