Measuring progress : community indicators and the quality of life
By: SWAIN, David
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Contributor(s): HOLLAR, Danielle.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: New York : Marcel Dekker, 2003International Journal of Public Administration - IJPA 26, 7, p. 789-814Abstract: As communities and local governments increasingly have become concerned about quality-of-life issues, community indicators have become a widely used tool to measure the status of the quality of life and progress being made toward improving it. Indicators provide a vehicle for understanding and addressing community issues from a holistic and outcomes-oriented perspective. They are useful, within the context of an overall community-improvement process, both as a planning tool, based on a community's vision, and as an evaluation tool to measure progress on steps taken toward improvement. Their usefulness is maximized when they are both directly tied to public-policy and budget decision making and when the community feels a sense of ownership of the indicators through direct citizen involvement with them. This article briefly describes four major approaches to community-indicators work, and then in more detail, illustrates one of the approaches called quality of life. This approach is illustrated with experiences of the Jacksonville (Florida) Community Council Inc. (JCCI), a pioneer and leader in the community-indicators movement.
As communities and local governments increasingly have become concerned about quality-of-life issues, community indicators have become a widely used tool to measure the status of the quality of life and progress being made toward improving it. Indicators provide a vehicle for understanding and addressing community issues from a holistic and outcomes-oriented perspective. They are useful, within the context of an overall community-improvement process, both as a planning tool, based on a community's vision, and as an evaluation tool to measure progress on steps taken toward improvement. Their usefulness is maximized when they are both directly tied to public-policy and budget decision making and when the community feels a sense of ownership of the indicators through direct citizen involvement with them. This article briefly describes four major approaches to community-indicators work, and then in more detail, illustrates one of the approaches called quality of life. This approach is illustrated with experiences of the Jacksonville (Florida) Community Council Inc. (JCCI), a pioneer and leader in the community-indicators movement.
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