Sustainability Blog

Curt Rosengren at Passion Catalyst International hosts a blog called The Sustainable Future. I'd like to direct your attention to the blog if you're interested in sustainability, and steer you to a couple of recent posts about community indicators around this concept of creating a sustainable future.

His post this month on Sustainable Community Indicators references Maureen Hart's work with Sustainable Measures. (You'll remember this earlier discussion of how Connecticut is using her work.) I like the way Curt leads into the conversation around indicators:

I think the sustainable transformation that needs to happen is going to do so at the individual and community level.

One of the challenges in developing a sustainable approach is taking it out of the abstract and into the tangible. It's nice to have a high-minded philosophy of sustainability, but what does that mean when the rubber meets the road, and how do you implement it?

This is a follow-on discussion to his earlier blog about The Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators, which are another important foundational framework for community indicators conversations. If you aren't familiar with the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators or with the rest of Hazel Henderson's work you owe it to yourself to take some time to dive into this re-envisioning of the future.

Here's Curt's description of why this is important:

Part of the reason the world is in such a mess is an over-focus on the financial as the sole measurement of how we're doing.

If we're going to make different decisions to build a sustainable future, we have to recognize that we're operating in a holistic, interconnected system and take into account a much wider range of factors.

If we in the indicators world are going to do a better job in story-telling and engaging people around indicators to bring about community change, we're going to need to pay attention to those who are passionate about community change who discover indicators -- the recently-converted, as it were, can help us use better language to describe the critically of measures of progress as part of any effort to transform community.

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The Role of Data Intermediaries in Policy

I was reading an interesting blog article on "using research for policy and practice." The blog, which is associated with the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA), begins with this question:

Are you doing enough to learn from research? A common theme from several recent events and meetings I’ve attended is research and using evidence in policy.

The author then makes the case that lots and lots of research is being done, and that information exists which should be informing public policy and practice. However, too often decisions are made without the benefit of that research.

He continues the discussion this way:

[T]here’s also an important role for intermediary bodies – like think tanks, professional bodies, consultants and of course the IDeA – whose job it is to keep on top of current thinking and feed it either directly to authorities or indirectly through new policy. The trick here is knowing which intermediaries to go to for which information. There’s also a role for networks, such as this one, where people can keep each other informed of the best places for information.

The challenge in linking data intermediaries (who gather together the research and data into some sort of comprehensible format) with policy makers (who don't generally have a lot of time that they've made available to read and digest the information themselves) is perhaps a critical one if we expect good policy. Likewise, the role of data intermediaries in gathering the information and making it available and accessible to the public so that people can be engaged and informed about community issues is similarly critical in the functioning of democratic societies, which require an engaged citizenry to ensure policy-making accountability.

So how do we who create community indicator reports and bring together the data do a better job in workinig with decision makers and the public in informing policy and practice? And how do we who do this work engage better in networks and communities of practice to help each other become more effective in this work?

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Using Walk Score as a Neighborhood Indicator

Thanks to an article from the folks at the Metro Jacksonville blog, I've got a new toy to play with when looking at neighborhood indicators. The website they pointed out is called Walk Score, and it generates a number (1-100) of how walkable a neighborhood is based on the amenities around it, including stores, restaurants, schools, parks, and so on. The methodology of how it works (and, greatly appreciated, how it doesn't work is provided on the site.

You can generate Walk Scores by plugging in any address in the United States, Canada, and the U.K. The folks at Metro Jacksonville did this to calculate the Walk Scores for areas surrounding the City Halls of America's largest cities. (Austin, New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh all had perfect scores; Jacksonville scored 88/100.)

Jim Benson's article on neighborhood livability helps explain the importance of walkability in neighborhoods. It's a follow-on to his explanation of Walk Score, which deserves reading as well. And since he appears to know what he's talking about (having been a growth management planner in Portland, which did a much better job of getting it right than many other cities I've lived in), let me direct you to his analysis of what Walk Score needs to make it much better:

I love the academic exercise in Walkscore. I also love the promise of being able to analyze neighborhoods for how inherently livable they are - as opposed to merely how deceivingly cheap the land is.

Walkscore has a ways to go before it's really complete. A complete analysis like this will include things like:

• Topography
• Average speeds on roadways
• locations of pedestrian crossings
• average daily traffic on the roadways
• existence of on-street parking
• traffic calming measures
• whether the amenities being walked to are on the street or behind a sea of parking
• trees
• parks
• specific ped-friendly points (benches, coffee shops, places to rest)
• weather
• pedestrian barriers (freeways, dangerous places, etc.)

Having said all this, Walkscore is already an excellent tool to demonstrate the hidden costs of living in the suburbs.

This could be an interesting measure for neighborhood indicator projects. How would you use it for neighborhood assessment and planning? How could you get beyond a static number score for a more interesting neighborhood display? Has anyone used this tool before?

(Thanks to the Sightline Institute for supporting Walk Score.)

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Triple Bottom Lines and Community Indicators

Triple Bottom Lines are efforts to include an "environmental bottom line" and a "social bottom line" to the financial bottom line companies report to their stakeholders. This usually results in companies measuring their environmental and community impacts in addition to reporting their profit/loss statements.

The triple bottom line approach (or TBL+1 now) is gaining currency among corporations. See the Global Sustainability Institute's TBL+1 website for more information.

The approach is not without its critics, especially as corporations try to illustrate what they're talking about with incomprehensible graphics. However, the number of corporations paying attention to their social and environment accountability is increasing, as illustrated in the recent KPMG report (worth taking a look.)

TBL is also gaining some currency among local governments. A good example is the work being done by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability (was International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives.) The goal of their triple bottom line program is, in their own words:

The aim of the Triple Bottom Line Capacity Building Program (TBL Program) is to provide a cost-effective solution for councils to incorporate sustainability and triple bottom line principles into the planning, decision-making and reporting practices of local government.

Sounds interesting, doesn't it? Here's a set of triple bottom line taxonomies for those who want to explore the concept further.

For community indicator efforts, TBL efforts provide another way to think about how to integrate a range of information in describing community progress. Government performance benchmarks are important data sets that overlap into the community indicators realm. TBLs are another.

How has your community integrated triple bottom line measures into your indicators of progress? Has your organization adopted a triple bottom line approach to your annual report?

Note: this blog entry began as a response to this discussion at TakingItGlobal.

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Data Discussions

With the growth of innovative technologies, opportunities to connect with people and discuss interesting topics keep expanding. For those of us who find data discussions fascinating, here are some of the types of places I've been noticing where people are talking about data.

Swivel: Swivel groups form around shared data sets (or sets of sets). The It's Official! group is a pretty good example of what this means: The group, created last week by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), "aims to improve communication between users and producers of official statistics. Producers are invited to show their wares, particularly any new or innovative data. Users, please let us know what you think about our products, and what sort of data you really need." Check it out and add your input to the discussion.

Many Eyes: Many Eyes has topic hubs that include discussions, visualizations, and data sets. An example of this is the topic hub around global warming: here's an opportunity to look at data, reshape it into graphs, and talk to others interested in the data and its presentation.

What other discussion groups do you participate in that include conversations around data, indicators, and statistics?

On a separate subject, take a look at the 16 data visualization tools (plus a few more in the comments section) in this article -- really interesting stuff. Let me know if you have others to add, or can figure out how to use one of these tools in a community indicator project.

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Community Indicators in Philadelphia

W.C. Fields proposed the following epitaph: "Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia" -- which never made it onto his headstone, but became a catchphrase used in books, blogs, and even by a President narrowly missing assassination.

So naturally the phrase came to mind when I saw the release of Where We Stand: Community Indicators for Metropolitan Philadelphia, put together by a team at Temple University, including Carolyn Adams, David Bartelt and Mark Mattson of geography and urban studies; David Elesh of sociology; Ralph Taylor of criminal justice; and Leonard LoSciuto and Peter Mulcahy of Temple’s Institute for Survey Research.

Here are a couple of interesting quotes about the project:

“This is the first comprehensive compilation of data about the region at the municipal, rather than county, level,” Provost Ira M. Schwartz said. “There are 353 municipalities and 196 school districts in this region. As a result, many policies and decisions are made at the local rather than regional level. These findings could form a basis for thinking and acting as a region about shared challenges and opportunities.”

“These findings, which will be updated annually, will be invaluable to researchers, civic and political leaders, and anyone else working to improve the quality of life in greater Philadelphia,” added Kathryn J. Engebretson, president of the William Penn Foundation, which funded the study with a three-year, $1.27 million grant.

In addition to the report, the MPIP folks have a series of focus reports on issues such as housing, youth, and job growth.

There are many good things about this report. The web-based presentation is easy to follow. The information is clear and easy to understand.

But I think the report misses an opportunity to move the conversation forward. In the section on diversity, the authors look at residential segregation patterns and income disparities by race and ethnicity. The sequence of reports and indicators, however, rely almost entirely on Census 2000 data to make the case that "Like many of its peer regions, the greater Philadelphia region no longer conforms to the conventional view of central cities as "melting pots," surrounded by homogeneous suburbs."

But better data, and more current data, exist to go beyond 2000 Census data to examine what's been happening in urban centers and suburbs, especially in housing, income, and employment, with regards to racial and ethnic disparities in the post-9/11, post-dot-com-bubble, post-housing bubble economy. If the indicators are to drive local and regional policy decisions, some understanding of what's happening with immigration, suburban sprawl, and job displacement as it relates to these disparities ought to be considered. The focus series notes the shift in population from the urban center and the movement of job opportunities, but misses the chance to explore who's moving out and who's working where in order to see the impact on residential segregation and income differences.

For housing data, I recommend http://www.dataplace.org/ -- the HMDA data provide fascinating insights into what's going on in the housing markets. At the very least, the American Community Survey datasets provide updated information on income, earnings, and poverty status by race and ethnicity.

And other data sets exist, some locally-generated and others measured at the state level, to understand what's really happening in a community around issues of racial disparities and diversity. It's worth checking the data to see if the conclusions drawn off of 2000 data still reflect today's realities.

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Community Indicators Consortium August Newsletter

The Community Indicators Consortium has released their August 2007 newsletter (PDF). The newsletter contains the following:

• Letter from the President, Allen Lomax, calling for increased involvement from those in the indicators field to work together to build a network of practitioners and interested parties;
• A report from Alex Michalos on his involvement with the OECD World Forum, the presentation he gave, and his reactions to the Istanbul Declaration;
• An article by Lisa Capoccia on the growth of the Toronto Vital Signs model throughout Canada, with 11 cities scheduled to release their own Vital Signs report this October;
• A write-up of the Inland Northwest conference on community indicators;
• A link to the new CIC paper, “Creating Stronger Linkages between Community
  Indicator Projects and Government Performance Measures”, available on the CIC website (PDF);
• Upcoming conferences and events dealing with community indicators; and
• A call for articles for future newsletters.

Check it out! If you're not a member of the Community Indicators Consortium, consider joining.

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Humor Through Graphs

All right, it's time for another installment of indicators humor -- for those of us who chuckle at this sort of thing.

Graphs can be funny. The classic example is this one:



A humorous graph designed to make a point and spur change can be found at the Flying Spaghetti Monster site:




For a series of graph-related humor, check out the Indexed blog -- here's a sample:


Also click here for a graph that purports to show Wayne's World movie and TV viewings and Bohemian Rhapsody-related car accidents.

What are your favorite graphs that make you smile?

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Measuring Poverty, Part III

We've been discussing the issues around measuring poverty here and here. Poverty is a critical issue -- in the US, we've been fighting a War on Poverty for over 40 years -- but we still haven't figured out how to define what it is we're fighting.

The National Human Services Assembly reports on the attempts this week to get closer to a shared measurement tool for poverty:

On August 1, the House Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held “Measuring Poverty in America,” to explore how the federal government measures poverty and potential alternatives to the current formula. Representatives and panelists agreed that the current official poverty measure -- based on 1960s estimates of food consumption -- is outdated and does not accurately indicate the cash and non-cash means available to families. However, panelists disagreed as to what the US official poverty measure should be, and how income, in particular, should be defined.

In their coverage of the issue, the National Assembly reports:

Absolute measures of poverty, such as the current US official measure, are ones that attempt to define a truly basic – absolute -- needs standard that is only updated for inflation. Relative measures, however, explicitly define poverty as a condition of comparative disadvantage, to be assessed against some evolving standard of living. Patricia Ruggles (National Academy of Sciences) testified in support of a hybrid measure of poverty, arguing that poverty thresholds must reflect current consumption needs. Failure to adjust such thresholds, she contested, would significantly undercount the numbers of those living in poverty. In determining what should be counted as income, she stated that policymakers must first ask what the poverty line seeks to measure.

To access witnesses’ testimony, please click here: http://waysandmeans.house.gov/hearings.asp?formmode=detail&hearing=581

In your community indicators efforts, how do you measure poverty?

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Call for Chapters - ISQOLS book

ISQOLS (the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies - www.isqols.org - is asking for chapter submissions for their upcoming book, Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Practices IV.

Volume Focus: This volume will publish best practices of community quality-of-life indicators projects. The first volume was published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2004 (edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Don Rahtz, and Dong-Jin Lee). The second volume was published by Springer Publishers in 2006 (edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Don Rahtz, and David Swain). The third volume was published by the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Rhonda Phillips, and Don Rahtz). See TOC of the first three volumes below. For the fourth volume, we are seeking excellent case studies that can be used by community planners and others as good examples or "prototypes" of community quality-of-life indicator projects. Papers dealing with theoretical issues in planning, developing, and using community quality-of-life indicators are not suitable for this volume. Instead, they should be sent for review and possible publication in Social Indicators Research (SIR) or Applied Research in Quality-of-Life (ARQOL).
Volume Editors: M. Joseph Sirgy (Virginia Tech), Rhonda Phillips (University of Florida), and Don Rahtz (College of William and Mary)

Submission Deadline: September 30th, 2007

Submit to:
M. Joseph Sirgy
Department of Marketing
Pamplin College of Business
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061-0236
USA

Tel: 540.231.5110
Fax: 540.231.3076
E-mail: sirgy@vt.edu

Submission Guidelines:

• The paper should be typed in either Arial or Times Roman, font size 10-12 with a margin of 1 inch on all sides.
• The paper should be typed either 1½ or double-spaced.
• Paper length should not exceed 30 pages in total including references, tables, and figures.
• Reference style: American Psychological Association (APA) style is preferred.
• E-mail attachment is the preferred mode of submission. Submit paper electronically to sirgy@vt.edu .
• All submissions should be original and not previously published. The submitted paper should not be submitted simultaneously to other publication outlets.

Guidelines for Paper Selection and Final Manuscript Preparation:

• Each paper will be subjected to a review by 2-3 referees who are experts in the field.
• The editors in consultation with the referees will make the final decision concerning acceptance or rejection.
• Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent out by the end of November 2007.
• It is very likely that the editors will request changes to the accepted papers based on the reviewers’ suggestions. These changes should be completed by the end of February 2008.
• Publication of the book is expected in late Spring, 2008 by the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies (see www.isqols.org).

Table of Contents: Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Don Rahtz, and Dong-Jin Lee published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004
ISBN: 1-4020-2201-8
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Vital Signs: Quality-of-Life Indicators for Virginia’s Technology Corridor by Terri Lynn Cornwell
Chapter 2: The Sustainable Community Model Approach to the Development and Use of Multi-dimensional Quality-of-Life Indicators by William T.
Grunkemeyer and Myra L. Moss
Chapter 3: Taking Indicators to the Next Level: Truckee meadows Tomorrow Launches Quality-of-Life Compacts by Karen Barsell and Elisa Maser
Chapter 4: A Collaborative Approach to Developing and Using Quality-of-Life Indicators in New Zealand’s Largest Cities by Kath Jamieson
Chapter 5: 2002 Hennepin County Community Indicators Report: Aligning Community Indicators with Government Mission, Vision and Overarching Goals by Misty Lee Heggeness, Paul Buschmann, and Thomas Walkington
Chapter 6: The State of the City of Amsterdam Monitor: measuring Quality of Life in Amsterdam by Peggy Schyns and Jeroen Boelhower
Chapter 7: A Three-decade Comparison of Residents’ Opinions and Beliefs about Life in Genesee County, Michigan by Robin Widgery
Chapter 8: Creating an Index to Evaluate a Region’s Competitiveness by Beth Jorosz and Michael Williams
Chapter 9: Toward a Social Development Index for Hong Kong: The Process of Community Engagement by Richard J. Estes
Chapter 10: measuring Sustainability and Quality-of-Life in the City of Zurich by Marco Keiner, Barbara Schultz, and Willy A. Schmid

Table of Contents: Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Cases II edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Don Rahtz, and David Swain published by Springer, 2006
ISBN: 1-4020-4624-3
Chapter 1: The Jacksonville, Florida Experience by J. Benjamin Warner
Chapter 2: The Boston Indicators Project by Charlotte Kahn
Chapter 3: Indicators in Action: The Use of Sustainability Indicators in the City of Santa Monica by Genevieve Bertone, Shannon Clements, Dean Kubani, Jennifer Wolch
Chapter 4: A Measure and Method to Assess Subjective Community Quality-of-life by M. Joseph Sirgy and Don Rahtz
Chapter 5: Perception and Evaluation of the Quality of Life in Florence, Italy by Filomena Maggino
Chapter 6: City of Winnipeg Quality of Life Indicators by Peter Hardi and Lazslo Pinter
Chapter 7: Sustainable Seattle: The Case of the Prototype Sustainability Indicators Project by Meg Holden
Chapter 8: Using Community Indicators to Improve the Quality of Life for
Children: The Sacramento County (CA) Children’s Report Card by Nancy Findeisen
Chapter 9: Living in a Post-apartheid City: A Baseline Survey of Quality of Life in Buffalo City by Robin Richards and Ellen Kamman
Chapter 10: Making Community Indicators Accessible through the Census Information Center: Howard University, Portals to the Community, and the New American University by Rodney Green, Maybelle T. Bennett, Haydar Kurban, Lorenzo Morris, and Charles C. Verharen
Chapter 11: Quality Indicators for Progress: A Guide to Community Quality-of-life Assessments by Marian Chambers and David Swain

Table of Contents: Community Quality-of-Life Indicators: Best Practices III edited by M. Joseph Sirgy, Rhonda Phillips, and Don R. Rahtz published by International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, 2007
Preface
Chapter 1: Connecting Outcomes to Indicators: The Santa Cruz County California Community Assessment Project (CAP) by DEANNA ZACHARY
Chapter 2: Pace of Life and Quality of Life: The Slow City Charter by HEIKE MAYER and PAUL KNOX
Chapter 3: The Clark County Monitoring System – An Early Warning Indicator System for Clark County Nevada by SHEILA CONWAY, JEREMY AGUERO, and IRENE NAVIS
Chapter 4: Evaluating Progress toward Sustainable Development in Milwaukee’s Menomonee River Valley: Linking Brownfield’s Redevelopment with Community Quality-of-Life by CHRISTOPHER A. DESOUSA, BENJAMIN GRAMLING, and KEVIN LEMOINE
Chapter 5: Examining the Spatial Distribution of Urban Indicators in São Paulo, Brazil: Do Spatial Effects Matter? By MÔNICA HADDAD
Chapter 6: Quality of life & Cultural Diversity in Peel Region (Ontario,
Canada) by SRIMANTA MOHANTY
Chapter 7: Measuring Quality of Life in Canadian Municipalities by JOHN BURRETT
Chapter 8: The Indices of Community Well-being for Calgary Community
Districts: A Neighborhood-Based Approach to Quality of Life Reporting by DEREK COOK and JOHN TE LINDE
Bibliographic Resources

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Measuring Rural Education

The National Center for Education Statistics has issued a new report, Status of Education in Rural America. In the section called Measuring Rural Education, they discuss the research and reasons for a new classification system to understand rural schools. The list of tables gives you direct access to the data in the report.

Highlights from the report include the following:

• In 2003-04, over half of all operating school districts and one-third of all public schools in the United States were in rural areas; yet only one-fifth of all public school students were enrolled in rural areas.
• A larger percentage of rural public school students in the 4th- and 8th-grades scored at or above the Proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading, mathematics, and science assessments in 2005 than did public school students in cities at these grade levels. However, smaller percentages of rural public school students than suburban public school students scored at or above the Proficient level in reading and mathematics.
• Current public school expenditures per student were higher in rural areas in 2003-04 than in any other locale after adjusting for geographic cost differences.
• In 2004, the high school status dropout rate (i.e., the percentage of persons not enrolled in school and not having completed high school) among 16- to 24-year-olds in rural areas was higher than in suburban areas, but lower than in cities.

While you're at the NCES site, be sure to check out the 2006 Digest of Education Statistics, just released on July 26. The latest reports and data from NCES can be found here. Don't miss the international education indicators either.

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