Community Indicators work in Truckee Meadows, NV

[cross-posted to our Sustainable Cities blog]

The Community Indicators Consortium has been hosting a series of webinars about community indicators and performance measures. The overall arc has been about how some local governments have successfully integrated community indicator work into how they measure their own performance, which is of interest to us because we hope to achieve the same with b-Sustainable. I've listened to the first two and would recommend them to anyone else interested in this kind of work; they've also been kind enough to make recordings available online.

Yesterday's was a case study from Truckee Meadows Tomorrow. I took some notes, which reflect my own biases and interests but may be worth sharing:

• The big impetus for starting their indicator work was a 1990s forecast of enormous population growth for the region - not unlike what PSRC is supposed to be preparing us for here
• The first round of indicator development was done by giving participants monopoly money to "buy" indicators with, as a way of prioritising the most valued n indicators. Apparently they don't use that procedure any more, but it sounds better to me than the more standard focus groups they've switched to, because it gives the meekest person in the room as much of a voice as the loudest. I'd be interested to hear why they switched.
• They're down to 33 indicators now, and even with those they have 10 quality-of-life categories that group things together, and they get feedback that the 10 categories are much easier to get a handle on than the 33 indicators.
• The categories are: Arts & Cultural Vitality - Civic Engagement - Economic Wellbeing - Education & Lifelong Learning - Enrichment - Health & Wellness - Innovation - Land use & Infrastructure - Natural Environment - Public Wellbeing
• In the past 5 years, they've made a special effort to reach "unusual suspects" - identifying communities not represented in the earlier focus group work and specifically recruiting them to add input.
• Washoe County uses the QoL indicators to track its own performance.
• A lot of the work they do on the basis of these indicators is done by partners of the counties - either volunteerism or compacts with companies - http://www.truckeemeadowstomorrow.org/collaborate/100

If this sounds interesting to you, I'd strongly recommend downloading the webinar from their site: http://www.communityindicators.net/post/events,cic-webinars-archive,truckee-meadows-tomorrow-and-washoe-county

Climate change: From Crisis to Opportunity at GGLO

Alex Steffen of World Changing started us off, framing climate change opportunity with a global scale perspective and heads up about the climate change impacts we can expect. graphics of sea level rise, peak everything, from oil to other natural resources, with scarcity leading to costs of $230 per barrel of oil (EIA data). With emissions from energy use to homes and offices, Alex turned attention to the imminent impacts of climate change and necessity to change our model. Solutions of mix use that went beyond the normal uses were show in graphics: wetlands with retail space, habitat with commercial space. He talked about un-consumption over post-consumption and the lack of preparation by companies in the US. Solutions reaching back to older models-hyper localized community economies, and old ways of seeing, and valuing today and tomorrow

Liz Dunn, Preservation Green Lab consulting director and developer in Seattle spoke to good density, bad density and the role of building reuse. Liz talked about desirable people and retailers and asked why people live in cities and the need to derive policy from these reasons: Connectivity, Character, A Sense of History, Access, Variety, A Human Scale, Specialization, Openness. Fill in- where buildings are built between each other, breaking down buildings rather than building a big box, openness, a company where people work and live in the same building,. - these were some of the whole systems approaches Liz asked us to consider. Liz brought examples of studies that demonstrated the local economy multiplier –local businesses generate twice annual sales and re-circulate twice as much. Liz attributed this to “urban grain” and pointed to This View of Density - www.sflcv.org/density/ - a resource that calculates outcomes. Density of uses, people, and time (building use over 24 hours) is the measure Liz tells us to use other indicators than quare feet. Liz asked people to measure the usage of the community- ghg emission, Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT), commute time, critical amenities, location-adjusted affordability, local economies. Jane Jacobs in The Economy of Cities writes about community performance.

Dennis Wilde, a developer, finished the panel with a few questions: who thinks what is the biggest challenge: climate change, population, water, peak oil, and all of the above. Dennis lectured not to look at issues in isolation. With AB 32, California’s climate change legislation requiring buildings to reduce energy consumption and our capacity to do this at question, Dennis pointed out the need for all of us to make decisions and take aggressive steps. He listed the challenges facting us: Green jobs that are living wage and local. Food that is sourced so we can feed ourselves with oil at or above 130 dollars a barrel and we do not fall into a depression.

Get Creative, Shift the economy. Make some Decisions – and take action.

University of Washington group to address topic of income inequality

At the University of Washington, 5 master's students of Public Health and Urban Planning realize that a major upstream indicator that has much impact on our health and our communities is that of Income Equity. Income Equity is one of the 16 community-identified sustainability goals on B-Sustainable. The goal is: To increase income equity by ensuring the fair and impartial distribution of income and access to economic resources regardless of economic or social status. However, recent trends in income distribution, living wage and housing affordability indicate that income equity in King County is GETTING WORSE- meaning that the gap between the wealthiest and the poor is getting wider. This has many implications for everyone.

The group will be doing some more in-depth research based off of the Communities Count report (next one coming in December) and then organizing action. Keep checking back to find out what the group is doing.

Additional Sources:
Economic Opportunity Institute
Extreme Inequality
Inequality
Economic Policy Institute
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Washington Tax Fairness Coalition
King County Equity and Social Justice Initiative
Population Health Forum
United for a Fair Economy
Responsible Wealth
Presentation by Linn Gould, about income inequity and sustainability
University of Texas Inequality Project, with many studies and data about income inequity
Article in NY Times that includes King County as one of the counties with the biggest income gap
Take Back Your Time

Spreading the Good Word of Indicators

---

Live at the Bioneers Conference...
S2 unveils its newest and very innovative information network, B-Sustainable, at the Bioneers Conference October 17-19 in Seattle. S2 and Communities Count will share a booth to show people how to be informed about our progress towards sustainability and health and social equity for all. Megan, Action Agenda Coordinator, will be presenting at 4:15pm on Saturday about the newest plans by S2 and Communities Count to use our information to take collective action.

Hey! We are in some other blogs!

• Check out what Ben Warner says about us on his blog, Community Indicators.
Mr. Warner is Director of JCCI, an innovative indicator project across the country in Jacksonville, Florida. JCCI's work has led to a great number of positive changes in Jacksonville, from policy implementation to the development of community leaders.