Community indicators are "measurements that provide information about past and current trends and help planners and community leaders make decisions that affect future outcomes." They provide insight into the overall direction of the community: whether it is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same, or a mixture of all three.
In essence, indicators are measures that reflect the interaction between social, environmental, and economic factors that affect the wellbeing of a region or society. Community indicator projects are usually conducted by non-profit organizations within the community, although in some cases they are initiated by the public sector.
Video Community indicators
History of community indicators
Community indicators are localized responses to perceived inequalities from traditionally dominated economic indicators, such as GDP, used to measure human progress. This validity takes two forms. First, the economic indicators take into account all money transactions that are beneficial to the quality of life, whereas some of them can be seen as clearly negative (eg, money spent on cleaning up the environment from preventable pollution). Second, strict economic indicators do not calculate the value of non-monetary activities, such as housewives and volunteer work and non-cash public assistance, which is clearly positive for the quality of life of many families (Journal article by David Swain, Danielle Hollar; International Journal of Public Administration, Vol.26, 2003).
This community-level approach to invalidity is based on evidence of social groups whose members live in certain areas, share government, and often have shared culture and history. Community indicator is not a new concept; they have been used since 1910, when the Russell Sage Foundation initiated the development of local surveys to measure industry, education, recreation, and other factors. The process used by the Sage Foundation is similar to that reappeared during the 1990s. But the difference now is the use of indicators to consider the full spectrum of community welfare, not just isolated factors. Currently, indicators are used by many constituencies within a community. After a decade of renewed attention to community indicators, they now represent valuable mechanisms to improve monitoring and evaluation in planning.
The Russell Sage Foundation employs "more than two thousand local surveys taken for education, recreation, public health, crime, and general social conditions" to assess social conditions. The first survey was conducted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Interestingly, in the late 1990s, Pittsburgh once again embraced indicators, with the Goals and Projects of Sustainable Pittsburgh Indicators.) Many of the surveys used by the Sage Foundation were conducted by nonprofit organizations, such as chambers of commerce and citizen committees. These surveys generate social and popular trend indicators until the Great Depression and World War II, when economic measures such as gross domestic product or gross national product indicators take a higher precedent.
Maps Community indicators
Target community information system
The community information system ( CIS ) brings together community indicators - social, economic and environmental data and information around the target:
- Monitoring the health, social welfare, and sustainability of communities through the management of Life Quality indicators;
- Bring together government performance indicators and community-targeted indicators into a single solution;
- Extend data use by citizens and public officials to support decision making, improve target policies and resources;
- Provide a broader local intelligence context for key performance indicators for government officials;
- Communicate the results of actions to citizens, encourage public debate and build confidence in progress towards societal goals.
See also
Further reading
- Ammons, D. N. 1996. City Benchmark: Assessing Local Performance and Setting Community Standards. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
- Andrews, J. H. 1996. "Planning Practice: Following Numbers." Planning, September, 14-18.
- Besleme, Kate, and Megan Mullin. 1997. "Community Indicators and Healthy Communities." National Civic Review 86, no. 1: 43-52.
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Magee, Liam; James, Paul; Scerri, Andy (2012). "Measuring Social Sustainability: a Community-Based Approach". Applied Research in Quality of Life . 7 (3): 239-61. - Scerri, Andy; James, Paul (2010). "Accounting for sustainability: Combining qualitative and quantitative research in developing 'indicators of sustainability'. International Journal of Social Research Methodology . 13 (1): 41-53. Ã,
External links
- Vital Signs - The Canadian Community Foundation
- Canadian Sustainability Indicators Network
- Community Consortium Consortium
- Spokane Community Initiative Initiative
- CIV; Victoria Community Indicators
- Bournemouth Council UK, the level of social deprivation
- Benning Community Blog Indicator by Ben Warner
- Community Information System & amp; InstantAtlas
- DataHaven, New Haven Community Indicator Website
- South Australia Strategic Plan
- Santa Cruz County Community Evaluation Project Site
- Jacksonville Community Council Inc., Jacksonville, FL
- Pinellas Community Indicators - Pinellas County, Florida, USA
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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