Where We Stand: Community Indicators for Metropolitan Philadelphia

Posted by on November 19, 2004

Where We Stand: Community Indicators for Metropolitan Philadelphia

It is our pleasure to inform you of the completion of Where We Stand: Community Indicators for Metropolitan Philadelphia, the first report of the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project. We are committed to providing an annual report of community indicators to assist communities and community leaders as they work to improve life for the residents of the Philadelphia region. With this report, Philadelphia joins a growing number of metropolitan areas that monitor the conditions of their communities as a way of focusing public discussions of issues affecting their residents. It is one of a very few that seek to address an entire region.

The report contains a series of indicators of community well being for the over 350 communities in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, spanning 9 counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It presents summaries of publicly available information and a survey of 1000 households across 14 dimensions of community life, ranging from basic demographic and socioeconomic characteristics to such dimensions of community life as education, arts and culture, civic participation, and the environment. Additionally, we have a specialized section focusing on community perceptions of policing, as well as basic information on levels of crime across the region.

The report is available on a CD, with the data sets that were used to develop the indicators, and also on-line, at http://www.temple.edu/mpip.

Contents:
The Region?s Communities
Diversity
Family Well-Being
Socioeconomic Conditions
Housing
Transportation
Regional Economy
Government & Taxes
Education
Civic Participation
Environment
Arts & Culture
Health
Crime and Criminal Justice