Measuring Cities: Something different is needed...

A city represents an incredibly complex set of considerations. Many measurements that help reflect city wellbeing are either overly simplistic or too specific to represent the interdependent nature of a community of communities---a city.

So the challenge was made to create a comprehensive set of measures that could provide stakeholders with a full picture of an entire city. And, not just comprehensive, but comparable so that all of the measurements could be readily compared enabling a clear view of aspects of a city that are strong and which ones need the most work.

The response was a measurement system that:

• Identified the 35 key Considerations of a city.
• Prioritized them into these 5 dimensions:
        Basic Needs
        Competitiveness
        Opportunity
        Livability
        Destiny
• Identified the underlying indicators or measures that affected the Considerations. A formula for the normalization of 120 indicators was created that allowed them to be measured out of 100 so that they could finally be compared.

Finally, a measurement system that permits an objective, critical view of wellbeing—and credible, evidence-based, and comprehensive. This was the answer to the incredibly complex and contextually changing realities of a city!