In an historic first for the area, Sustainable Lansing presented two workshops on June 22 and 26 to begin developing indicators of sustainability. Twenty-three people from the community attended (16 and 7 respectively). Included were many who had attended the first community forum on sustainability in May. Together, they addressed the questions: What do we want to sustain and improve and how can we measure it?

The workshops began with a visioning session where everyone shared something about what they valued most highly about the present community, what they most wanted to sustain or improve. After a brief educational presentation on sustainability indicators, the concerns raised in the visioning session became the foci of small group work that extended through much of the day. The small groups clarified goals, traced connections among different facets of the community, devised a list of possible indicators, evaluated their indicators, and recommended a few as their best candidates.

Two out of three small groups (A and C below) completed the indicator evaluation using a modified version of the Hart checklist. They discussed discrepancies between individual evaluations and then found a consensus. The third group (B below) constructed a list of 41 possible indicators. With little time left it was suggested to set aside the core of the checklist (#s 6-11). The group then polled itself to reach its recommendations. In their reports or discussions, each group mentioned some indicators as worthy of consideration for further refinement or development. Small Group Results Group A

Recommended
1. Percent of roads that are bikeable and walkable
2. Number of jobs in the arts (and music) that pay a living wage
3. Ratio of minorities pulled over by police but not ticketed or arrested compared to non-minorities
4. Percent of miles traveled without burning fossil fuels
5. Total pollution from transportation and total from public transportation

Consider For Possible Refinement
1. Percent of miles or trips not by car
2. Price and walking distance of a basic shopping bag of needs
3. Number of civic organizations in each neighborhood or locality and average per locality for region
4. Percent of people participating in community activities by locality and for region
5. Percent of media messages stressing quality of life over possessions
6. Percent of non-profit organizations who perceive themselves as powerful or effective, and the percent of citizens who perceive one or several non-profits as powerful or effective

Recommended
1. Number of hours worked (at an average wage) to meet basic needs and the total number of hours worked (difference is “discretionary” work)
2. Number of businesses locally owned compared to number not locally owned
3. Number of parks or publicly accessible places

Consider For Possible Development
1. A measure of knowledge of one’s community based on responses to a questionnaire about the community’s economics, politics, culture

Recommended
1. Number of miles of walkable and bikeable trails
2. Completeness of the network of walkable and bikeable trails for necessary travel (as displayed by a map)
3. Number of busses that port bikes on the back
4. Average time driving per day compared to average time car pooling or average number of riders, and also compared to the average miles traveled per day
5. Average distance to work, school, shopping, recreation for the region and by neighborhood or locality
6. Number of people housed in integrated or mixed type housing compared to number in homogenous neighborhoods
7. Percent of people who perceive themselves as active or very active in neighborhood or community life
8. Acreage used for local garden plots and the percent of those that are public gardens

Consider For Possible Refinement or as Background Indicators
1. Number of miles walked or biked on trails
2. Number of bikes in use per week or day for exercise vs. travel to work, school, food
3. Quality of river water
4. Number of species of big and little creatures in the river
5. Average number of species at area bird feeders
6. Number of instances per person of the same public space being used for different types of activity each month

Partnering Dialogue

At the first workshop time was taken after the small group reports to hear about on-going projects in the area that relate closely to sustainability indicators.

Jon Coleman from the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission briefly described the “Regional Growth” study. He pointed out that there would be an opportunity to augment some of the data gathered to say more about regional sustainability. Sustainable Lansing could provide some helpful input to this process.

Brian McKenna from the Ingham County Health Department described the environmental health assessment project. He stressed the difficulties presented simply to aggregate consistent data from many independently managed projects or agencies, but he also felt it would be helpful to see what indicators of environmental health were of interest to the community.

Paul McConaughy from Capital Area United Way followed up his morning introduction of the “Retrospect and Prospect” yearly reports from the Capital Community Shared Vision project. He described the years long process of finding or gathering data to support that project and cautioned that none of the recommended indicators (from groups A and B) had supporting data presently available. However, he invited Sustainable Lansing to assess what the present “Retrospect and Prospect” report tells us about sustainability in the area and to suggest further indicators for which data can be acquired at an appropriate cost.

Send e-mail to: Information@UrbanOptions.org or shepard@msu.edu

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