Metrics that matter, what makes a city or town great?

[michaelskis]

One of my predecessors refers to himself as "A benchmarking guy" and was really big into economic development metrics. He would look at the usual factors of income levels, housing values, and average corporate wages. But I think there is a lot of missing in his metrics to benchmark.

A Forbs article from a decade ago discussed this point and talked about how we might view a place like NYC as successful, but when you dig deeper, the city is in debt, housing is not affordable, and there are significant infrastructure problems. It went on to discuss 30 variables from four categories to determine what is important. But it didn't include things like walkability or parks and recreational amenities.

Moeny.com has their annual rankings and the variables change based on category. The categories include things like Suburbs with Soul, New Boomtowns, Culture Hubs, and Best Kept Secrets. They claim to be very data oriented, but with any data, garbage in/ garbage out. Some of the data that they use is only at a metro view which limits high performing suburbs next to not so high performing cities. Some of their metrics include:

• The health of the local job market
• The average housing costs borne by homeowners and renters
• The percentage of residents in poverty
• The quality of public schools

Many other publications use a combined 'quantitative and qualitative' ranking system to publish their best of lists each year, many times with a tie to the intent of their publication.

But when it comes down the the nuts and bolts of it, what really matters? Granted this is itself a loaded question because so many people look for something different in a community. But what would you saw are the metrics that matter for a great city or town?

 

[Hink]

New York is an apple (get it?) and Chicago is an orange. I really love data, and I think that KPI's and documented points of growth and benchmarking are really important to assure that you are moving in the right direction. I think that we try to compare places too often though, particularly with data points that may "say" the same thing, but contextually aren't the same language.

NYC is successful, and so is Chicago. One may have more park space / resident, or more Starbucks / city block - but why are we comparing these stats? I think that we should have stats so we can compare our own growth. Benchmark our goals and objectives, and work towards making our communities better in those metrics. I can't change that my community in Ohio doesn't have tourism... we don't have anything to tour. If I had mountains or a beach it might be different. So when I look at the metrics of my community against one in SC we may reflect poorly against them, and that is okay.

Geography plays such a huge roll in how most communities have evolved, that their success, or lack thereof, it usually tied to that location. Communities on bodies of water have a lot more opportunities and challenges than ones that are landlocked, but have tons of available farmland just waiting to be developed. Then add in locational resources like water or oil/gas wells, and many communities just don't have the same ability to be compared.

In my opinion, what matters is what you want to see your community succeed in. If your community wants to stay a bedroom community that has no jobs and no industry, looking at the heath of the local job market wouldn't reflect well on your success. I love benchmarking and providing a roadmap to follow to see how we are doing and how we could do better. I just don't see the value in benchmarking against other communities.

Objectively though, I really like Salzburg, Austria. So whatever they are doing, do that.