Connecting Knowledge and Policy: The Promise of Community Indicators in the United States

Abstract

benchmarking, community indicators, indicator development and construction, indicator theories, quality of life,

Community Interests and Indicator System Success

“…The indicators research community tends to focus on remedying the needs for data, computational methodologies and technology infrastructure for indicators development and use (Nature Editorial 2007;Wiek and Binder 2005;Wong 2002). Only more recently developed is research into the specific social and political factors that determine whether and how indicators get developed and used, despite widespread recognition that these factors present the biggest barriers to effective application of indicators in any context (Rydin 2007;Herzi and Dovers 2006;Dluhy and Swartz 2006;Reed et al 2006;Eckerberg and Mineur 2003;Pastille Consortium 2002;Innes and Booher 2000). In this article, we examine how identification with particular types of communities in the urban realm affects the way an indicator system is perceived and sets specific barriers and conditions to its uptake and implementation.…”

Theoretical Perspectives Guiding QOL Indicator Projects

“…For a listing of community indicators projects, visit the website of Community Indicators Consortium at www.communityindicators.net. Many indicator projects develop their system of indicators using a bottom-up method (Dluhy and Swatrz 2006). This method focuses on allowing community residents and community stakeholders groups to identify indicators that are important to them (and therefore the community at large).…”

The Assessment of Well-being in Context of Regional Development

“…Several studies on "good governance" [26] and numerous comprehensive comparative analyses [39], [30], [16], [15], [14] formed the framework for evaluating the role of well-being in the context of local governance. In addition, nowadays the concept of sustainable development has been taken into account, which has been developed within the comparative institutional study on governance structures by Swanson and Pintér [56] Bellagio Principles and the renewed Bellagio STAMP principles [43] as well as the research of Mineur [35] proposed to develop, monitor and assess sustainability indicators in the context of ensuring well-being.…”