Improving Community Indicator Systems: Injecting More Social Science into the Folk Movement

There has been a recent dramatic increase in citizen participation in the quality of life, place and sustainability movements. The activity has created a folk culture of data analysis and political action devoid, for the most part, of new knowledge production from the social sciences. Most indicator efforts are unfocused, pregnant with unrealistic expectations, poorly developed and designed and doomed to be ignored. There are many connections among efforts to measure quality of life, quality of place, liveability, sustainability and performance. If the science and the practice of community measurement are to advance, these measurement efforts must either be clearly distinguished from one another, or thoroughly integrated. Eschewing the latter, the article attempts to analyze the similarities and differences among community indicator measurement efforts, and tries to bring more clarity to their descriptions and components. The article proposes that each community indicator system project should have a qualified social science scholar engaged in the development of its unique approach. It concludes with six critical suggestions for building those systems so they can become more than marketing tools and become aids for actually improving the human condition.