| Vol.
I, No. 6 | Sugaring
/ Spring Equinox | Mar.
16th, 2001 |
Working
Together
Links to Working Together On-Line . Links
to Working Together On-Line
The amount of info on
the web is enormous, as anyone who's ever tried to run a search can attest
to. And, to put it all in context, best estimates say that only a
fraction, maybe 20 - 40 % of what's out there is actually making its way to the
search engines.
Well ...
Here at DownStreet, we'd like to try to help. So each issue, we
post a few links in Working Together to sites that might interest you.
Sometimes the links will be related to one another ... sometimes
we'll just offer up a somewhat random sampling. In either case, we think
we might be able to help you find the kind of site you've been looking for.
Of course, while we can't vouch for the fact that every link we provide will be
of interest to everyone, we do our best to filter out the noise and the
bustle. ...
We hope you enjoy the following sites as
much as we do. Useful
Data on Communities
The following sites provide useful data on &
for communities. ... Vermont
Community Data Bank This
offering comes from The Center for Rural Studies [CRS] up at UVM. The
site is reasonably fast, especially considering that, in some cases, we're
dealing with large amounts of data here. ...
Among
the data? Social and Economic Indicators for Vermont, Vermont Health
ResourceNet: Health Indicators & Resources, Vermont Population
Projections, Qualitative profiles for Selected Communities ... and a curious
entry entitled "A Gazetteer of Vermont Places: Real and
Imagined." ... And there's a new entry, related to this
month's Community
Service article -- Indications of Community -- entitled Vermont
Indicators Online.
This data won't solve community problems.
But it could help to identify them more clearly ... and more importantly, it
could help to point us in the right direction.
Rating **** [4 stars].
.
Vermont
Community Profiles: Addison Central This
link is actually to a Table of Contents for a Report from the Addison
Central Supervisory Union, chosen as a representative example of a community
indicators project for Addison County. ...
The page lists
nearly 70 community indicators for a variety of goals -- from community
involvement & decision-making to health, schooling, family life, life
passages, and safety. Clicking on any of the items to the right of the
indicators brings up a page with lots of charts, graphs, and stats to show
how the community fares in approaching its goals. ... Among some of
the indicators: Percent of eligible population voting in general
elections; Percent of youth who report they are given useful roles in their
community; Percent early prenatal care; Percent of kindergarteners fully
immunized; School attendance rate (average percent of days attended);
Percent of youth who report parents set clear rules and consequences; Rate
of court dispositions for delinquency; Percent of population aged 65+ in
poverty ... and many more.
This link provides one example of how
communities can use indicators to help assess health & welfare for
a livable & sustainable community.
Rating **** [4 stars].
. Introduction
to Community Indicators This
is the page on the Livable
Communities site that provides an overview of Community
Indicators. The site is reasonably fast ... and the info, very
useful. ...
The Intro provides a Background, information on the
concepts of Livability and Sustainability, the Characteristics of Good
Indicators, and a primer entitled "How Can My Community Develop
Indicators?" In addition, there is an overview and link to
broad-based resources for Suggested Indicators. These "Possible
Indicators" are arranged either by "The Issues" {see this
month's Community Service article} or by what they refer to as "The
Framework" -- three major categories, including "long-term
endowments and liabilities ... processes that increase or decrease these
endowments, and ...current results and three subcategories for each
category: economic, environmental, and social." Both sets are
broken down by both national & local indicators.
The idea of
livable & sustainable communities seems to us to be a step in the right
direction -- away from greed and short-term self-interest, and toward the
notion that we have kids to pass our communities on to, and therefore, a
responsibility to pass along something that will continue to work down the
road. This site supports the effort.
Rating: ****1/2 [4-1/2 stars]. .
*******
******* If you know of any
links that you think are worthwhile, why not send them along to ...
links@downstreetmagazine.com
... If we agree, we'll be happy to include
them in an upcoming issue to pass the word along. ...
Thanks. *******
******* .
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