Towards a Model Community Indicator Program: Drawing experience from the construction of the San Diego - Tijuana CIP

John M. Blair, University of New South Wales, Australia, johnb@fbe.unsw.edu.au
Celeste Murphy Greene, Old Dominion University, cgreene@odu.edu

Abstract
 

A considerable number of city-based indicator programs now exists in the United States. They use suites of indicators in community indicator programs (CIPs) to monitor economic and environmental trends and social well-being. CIP’s are based on the philosophy that good management of our cities requires accurate and regular feedback. The construction of a CIP for the San Diego-Tijuana Metropolitan Area (SDTMA) is justified by a plethora of environmental and social problems along the US-Mexico international border. Two of the chief outcomes of our research on the SDTMA are first, the process objectives that must be pursued if citizen support is to be gained for successful CIP operation. The researchers have proposed a model CIP participation system. The second research outcome concerns the CIP indicators. The vast majority of measures in CIPs are simple input measures and the researchers have taken a number of examples and shown how they can be made more informative. Our work has also enabled us to draw some provisional principles about indicator enhancement generally. 
 

Introduction

Indicators consist of quantitative and qualitative information presented in a formalized way to portray past and current conditions in a system (Hodge 1996). Indicators have been used for decades to inform and support policy change. Gross national product, cost of living, and employment statistics are three of the more common national indicators used in many countries. What is innovative is the way they are combined into suites to monitor global, national, and community condition especially since the Rio Declaration and commitments to Agenda 21 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1993). The United Nations coordinates global measurement of a wide variety of phenomena such as greenhouse gas accumulation and ozone depletion. The agency also constructs macro-indicators which describe “North” and “South” processes including the human development index (HDI) (Henderson 1994) which aggregates a number of separate indicators into a composite measure.
 

At the community level, there has been a proliferation of city-based indicator programs in the United States (U.S.). Over 200 communities are using suites of indicators in community indicator programs (CIPs) in an attempt to monitor economic and environmental trends and social well-being and much research (eg Redefining Progress 1997; Reid 1995; Innes and Booher, 1999; Besleme and Mullin 1997; and Atkinson et al. 1996) has commented on the ability of CIPs to heighten public awareness about the performance of their community. A CIP is based on the philosophy CIPs are essential policy management tools, yielding information that justifies change of direction or reinforcement of existing policy. These principles apply especially in the San Diego-Tijuana Metropolitan Area (SDTMA).
 

Concerns in the SDTMA suggest that regional monitoring and feedback is imperative if the area is to maintain its quality of life (QOL). Introducing a CIP would be valuable for several reasons. First, the SDTMA is one of the fastest growing regions in North America. Second, significant disparities between the two cities, and decades of insensitive development have brought a plethora of environmental and social problems to the border area bisecting the two cities. The SDTMA is a microcosm of the challenges faced by the entire US-Mexico Bi-National Region (BNR). It is “on a trajectory that will lead to declining quality of life and quality of environment and …trans-border cooperation ……is necessary” (Ganster 1998: 1). Third, critical issues challenge the SDTMA, such as intense pressure on natural resources like water supply. Bio-diversity is seriously threatened and there are health risks to humans as a result of air, water, and soil pollution (United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Mexican Secretariat for Environment, Natural Resources, and Fisheries (SEMARNAP) (Ganster 1998). Quality of life in parts of the metropolitan region is so poor that the regional economy could be adversely impacted. A management and information system manifested in a CIP is one way of highlighting such pressures and encouraging investment and initiatives designed to correct problems.
 

This paper is based on research work whose prime objective was to provide a citizen-based CIP for the bi-national community of the San Diego – Tijuana metropolitan area (SDTMA). In providing data for 35 indicators and discussing practical matters like program operation we believe we have provided much potential for program implementation but these matters are discussed elsewhere (Murphy-Greene and Blair 2004). However, we are conscious of process weaknesses in the CIP which prevents the program from being truly representative. There are also technical weaknesses in the nature of the indicators proposed by the citizen focus groups. Thus the purpose of the paper is to offer general guidance on how to enhance an embryonic CIP so that it can act as a model for other cities, including urban areas in the BNR. There is a noticeable lack of CIPs operating at regional scale and a model program for the US-Mexico BNR could be of special benefit given social and environmental conditions in the urbanized parts of the region. Both the product (a CIP) and the process of its formation could be instructive models for other twin city complexes in the BNR.
 

Two elements of enhancement are discussed in the paper. First, much more ambitious process objectives are needed if a representative program is to be achieved and citizen support is to be gained for CIP operation. The researchers have proposed a model CIP preparation process based on our experience and on a synthesis of other operating CIPs. Second, the vast majority of the indicators proffered by the two focus groups are relatively simple input measures. The researchers have taken a number of indicators and shown how they could be made more analytic and informative. This exercise has enabled us to draw some provisional principles about indicator enhancement.
 

Background
 

This paper is based on research work whose key objective was to provide a citizen-based CIP for the San Diego–Tijuana Metropolitan Area (Murphy-Greene and Blair 2004). The study is closely based on the work of two small focus groups held in the two cities. Each focus group identified issues and proposed indicators in the environmental, social and economic domains. Second, the groups raised a number of specific issues and proposed indicators that reflected particular characteristics of the SDTMA.
 

The CIP is the first cross-border and inter-urban program within the US-Mexico Bi-National Region (BNR) to integrate environmental, social, and economic data into a single coherent program to inform community leaders about the condition of the SDTMA. The program is built around principles of community well-being or quality of life (QOL). The region covered by the CIP generally consists of the urbanized core of metropolitan Tijuana and San Diego County.
 

Some 47 indicators were proposed by the San Diego focus group and 50 by the Tijuana group. The CIP has been activated to consist of a suite of 35 indicators for which data has been identified and provided. Fifteen of the indicators apply to Tijuana, 20 to San Diego. Ten of the Tijuana indicators are socio-economic and five are environmentally oriented. In San Diego, 14 indicators are socio-economic, six environmental (Murphy-Greene and Blair 2004). The proposed CIP takes a first essential step in monitoring the urban region. It is, however, only a building block and the following sections of the paper offer guidance on how to enhance both process and the CIP’s technical quality so that it can act as a model for other densely urbanized regions in North America and elsewhere.

Enhancing the Process: Building Implementable CIPs
 

The contextual literature on the nature, purpose and compilation of CIPs is extensive. Given the results of the research, the literature review focuses on the two key purposes of the paper - enhancing the process of CIP formation and improving its technical merit. Each is discussed in turn below. The technical merit of the program is not necessarily tied to the nature of the process so that one could proceed without the other. Gaining both enhancements would be a salutary achievement, however.
 

Public participation is an important issue in democratic nations but as Bartlett said (1994) dialogue can be an end in itself. There are CIPs that support the point. Non-government organization (NGO) Jacksonville, Florida is an example where community learning was the sole purpose of the program for some 15 years before the CIP incorporated a small number of goals for experimental performance measurement (Florida Sustainable Communities Centre 2000). Some researchers and practitioners like Cobb (2000a) and Paterson (2000) have raised questions about the depth of the relationship between participatory local processes and achievements in terms of policy planning. They question the assumption that achieving society’s goals depends exclusively on achieving consensus and that if people talk long enough, consensus will emerge.

Mainstream thinking is that high levels of community involvement are essential to obtaining meaningful CIPs and that a program should sit within a long-term vision for the community’s future (e.g. CRC 1999; Swain 2000; NNIP 1996; Colorado Trust 1999; Santa Monica 2003). A convincing investment in the process of constructing a participatory CIP can have several highly beneficial outcomes. First, it is democratic – inclusionary rather than exclusive. Second, there is the promise of sharing the task of monitoring and data assembly between the local council/NGO and local residents, generating further interest and support. Third, it may encourage the decision-making authority to take an active policy management stance rather than a laissez faire one so it boosts chances of implementing policy changes. Last, a participatory process may have community development benefits for it promotes collaboration between urban groups that might have been at odds in the past. Many urban policy disagreements exist because of misconceptions based on inadequate knowledge. Presenting accurate data about local conditions in a fresh way can reduce and even dissolve dissent (NNIP 1996; Colorado Trust 1999)

Enhancing Participation
 

The regional indicator program for the U.S.-Mexico BNR (EPA/SEMARNAT’s 1998) is almost exclusively a top down, expert model. In such a vast region, covering a zone that extends 100 km on either side of the international border and 3,141 kilometers in length, it was a logical approach for the two federal government agencies to take. However, the SDTMA is a relatively small geographical unit within the larger BNR. Using two small focus groups to generate a “first cut” of indicators was useful in bringing up many of the region’s concerns but a truly participatory and representative CIP can only be composed by a range of groups and individuals that truly reflect the wider community. The model needs to be tested but the process constructed in Figure 1 could emerge as an exemplary model for any large and diverse metropolitan area, especially the SDTMA. The model is based on process chains applied in a practical way to several CIPs, (eg City of Tucson 1999; Sustainable Seattle 1998; King County 2000 and 1998; Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network – JVSVN - 1998 and 2004; Jacksonville 1998 and  Santa Monica 2003 and 2004). The entire process of community involvement, input, and feedback can take 1-3 years depending on the resources and commitment of the LGA or NGO and its constituents.
 

A participatory exercise with a “bottom up” emphasis still needs expert input. One reason is to reflect national and global concerns that local residents might not perceive. There are other functions that experts should perform too. A critical one is to facilitate the CIP development process which might include providing introductory comments relating to the content and nature of indicator programs. A second function should be exercised cautiously in a grass roots exercise - that of giving expert guidance in connection with the indicators themselves, their practicality, and the likelihood of data being available. Guidance during the construction process or at the end of each major iteration in the process suggested in Figure 1 is usually necessary. Blending the public’s views with technical advice in this way helps to bring about a set of realistic community indicators that are supported by a good proportion of the populace (eg City of Santa Monica 1999; City of Olympia 1998).  
 

Step 1: Organizational Elements of the Process: Steering and Technical Committees

An advisory group that represents many facets of the community is vital. We have called it a “Technical Group” (TG) in Figure 1, its chief function being to facilitate the process. It may consist of paid consultants, a core group within an LGA, or voluntary community activists and leaders (eg JVSVN 1998) or a blend of the three. The group provides expert review throughout the process. In King County’s case (2000) the TG consisted of an overarching Steering Committee that maintained oversight of the entire process. The Santa Monica CIP upgrade followed a similar path (Santa Monica 2003). Its TG was composed of 30 technical and professional people with knowledge of social, economic and environmental issues, indicator principles, and data availability. A guiding principle for the Santa Monica TG at the stages shown in Figure 1 was to acknowledge the values of the community. Their role was also to organize public outreach, augment citizen input, comment in terms of the strengths and limitations of the data, and to emphasize the importance of some of the issues that had been raised by the community.

Step 2: Process Milestones

Regarding the six milestones in Figure 1, the embryonic CIP for the SDTMA that grew from the contributions of two small focus groups is seen as Phase 1 of a multi-staged effort. Subsequent phases involving the telephone survey, focus groups and civic/public forums – are vital subsequent phases of the engagement process. It enables a picture to be developed that is grounded in citizen values with basic needs and issues identified as well as the broader aspirations of the community.

Step 3: Securing Public Input

An indicator construction process that emphasizes “grass roots” input, must devote much effort into securing a high level of public interest and response. There are numerous techniques that can be used to raise general awareness in the community. Examples are leaflet handouts at popular shopping malls, newspaper inserts and articles, local radio announcements, and sending leaflets home with children and all could precede the public input of Phase 2 in Figure 1.

After awareness raising or perhaps overlapping with it, a representative picture of what the residents of the SDTMA might value about their neighbourhoods and what concerns they might have about their region needs to be elicited. Techniques include using focus groups, field surveys with questionnaires, random telephone surveys (eg King County 2000) or forming high profile, large and representative panels that have considerable networking power (Sustainable Seattle 1998).


 

Minority populations are often under-represented in survey work, often due to language difficulties. In the King County (2000) process, special focus group discussions were held with 17 minority groups. Interpreters were available where necessary. The discussions enriched the information gathered through the telephone survey. This tactic would be even more desirable in the SDTMA, a metropolitan area that is at least as diverse as Seattle and King County. The values emerging from the surveys, including special focus group sessions as well as the Phase 1 measures in Figure 1 would become bedrock data and be revisited frequently in developing the draft suite of indicators.
 

Step 4: The Civic and Public Forums
Phases 3 to 5 of the process model in Figure 1 focus on intensive public review. Holding exhibitions, meetings and civic forums to encourage participation are typical. The Civic Forums of the King County model consisted of interactive working sessions between citizen activists and officials on the TG. Holding a minimum of two Civic Forums means that the subjects, themes and potential indicators emerging from Civic Forum 1 can be filtered through Phase 4’s public forums and then distilled in Civic Forum 2. It is a form of triangulation research, the five public forums of the King County exercise being sandwiched between the two Civic Forums. Each public forum was in a different geographic location to provide wide opportunity for involvement. The public forums in particular should be announced extensively through mailing lists, local media, and by networking telephone calls. Participants would be expected to review the original (long) list of indicators from Phase 3 (and in the SDTMA case, also from Phase 1) and suggest modifications. Public forum participants should also be invited to the final Civic Forum. Clearly the number of civic and public forums held can be flexible depending on resources, commitment and local circumstances (Santa Monica 2003; 2004).

Community Goals
An important element of program enhancement would be to place the program within a long-term vision for the community’s future. It immediately raises the issue of goals and objectives. Accurate monitoring requires goals (or objectives) and a solid conceptual understanding of the issues if the indicator – goal relationship is to meet tests of validity (de Neufville 1975). Goals provide a strong context for implementation through the policy management process. Many CIPs do not have formal goals but declaring them and adding targets (and if possible, standards) is more democratic and gives a much firmer sense of direction than a non-goal CIP (Santa Monica 2003; City of Tucson 1999). One could make the point that it is an LGA’s responsibility to facilitate a process in which community goals are articulated. However, a set of NGO goals may lack credibility unless there is a close partnership with an LGA and the latter accepts the appropriateness of the goals. Sustainable Seattle, a technical and participatory role model for all CIPs in the United States, did not identify goals because there was no collaboration with the City of Seattle for the first program (Hatcher 1999; Sustainable Seattle 1998). A similar situation prevailed in Jacksonville, Florida for 15 years until the first goals were introduced into the NGO’s program following collaboration with the local council (Jacksonville CCI 1998 and 2003). 

It might be expected that finding common goals and targets in the SDTMA would be rare but 21 common indicators in the embryonic program belie this. Regardless, generating formal goals will be as challenging as the CIP development process and it may be less strenuous to conduct the visioning process at a future stage after a monitoring program has been operating for a few years. The CIP can run tolerably well on the basis of unspoken goals, implicit through the indicators that are selected for the CIP. Coming to grips with goals, objectives, and targets will ultimately be necessary if the performance measures are to have some influence on quality of life in the SDTMA. If visioning and goal creation is handled simultaneously with process enhancement, it needs to be tackled early in the process and no later than Civic Forum 1. Technical issues relating to indicator validity and the plausibility and measurability of the goals themselves are raised later in the paper.
 

Step 5: The Final Indicator Suite

Phase 5 – Civic Forum 2 - represents the culmination of the process, a product in the form of an indicator suite, preferably reflecting a balance between the problems and strengths of the individual and community (Jacksonville 2003). The CIP will perform at least two functions, especially if it is goal-based and is managed by an LGA. The first is the CIP’s communication role in educating, informing, and linking individuals and communities on many issues. The second and critical function is that of policy management. After urging very intensive citizen involvement, there is a strong inference that people will expect action on issues they have expressed concern about. Normally, this will come through the annual budget process.

Step 6: Operating the Program

Finally, Phase 6 represents urban governance in action, that is operating the program. It involves establishing data collection and monitoring systems, reporting on the results of tracking, making policy adjustments based on the indicator trends and processing feedback from further monitoring. Again, based on a highly participatory exercise in CIP development, practical involvement by SDTMA residents might be expected (eg TMTRPA 2000; Jacksonville CCC 1998). Clearly, this is not a passive model for a laissez-faire administration for it speaks of a government with a clear idea of where it wants to head.
 

Implementation and CIP Management
 

Normally the LGA, or occasionally the NGO that creates the indicator program, automatically becomes the managing agency. The SDTMA program was constructed jointly by a university and two focus groups. Although the CIP is ready for immediate operation, neither group compiling the CIP make suitable program operators. There are several sub-regional CIPs in the US that could act as precedents and guide metropolitan sized regions such as the SDTMA (eg Portland-Multnomah County Progress Board 2002; Truckee Meadows Regional Planning Agency 1999; and JVSVN 1998). The NGO JVSVN probably has the most organizational pointers for BNR metro complexes like the SDTMA. The program started in 1995 and has blossomed into a relatively comprehensive examination of social, economic and environmental conditions throughout the 1,500 square mile and 2.3 million people region. There are 17 multi-sectoral goals and 27 indicators for performance evaluation. The twin issues of CIP management and implementation are discussed at much greater length in Murphy-Greene and Blair (2004) together with several other relevant matters connected with size and balance of program; regionalism or the relation of the regional CIP to city and county government units; nesting and the standardization of data collection systems.

Technical Improvements to CIPS
 

There are many elements that contribute to a technically praiseworthy CIP and they are summarized in Table 1. In addition, the CIP should sit within a framework of plausible and measurable goals and there is the related question of introducing targets and standards to help make goals more tangible or even as a substitute for goals. Data must be reliable and, especially in a multi-jurisdictional CIP, collected and analysed in a standardized manner. The span of indicators should be reasonably comprehensive and acknowledge topical issues. For example, few CIPs attempt to monitor inter-generational aspects of pollution, especially fossil fuel replacement and greenhouse gas emissions. Futurity or the long term is greatly neglected and the concept of inter-species equity is usually missing in CIPs. However, for space reasons this section of the paper will focus on two technical issues. The first is goals/objectives since adopting goals is an important process matter, discussed above. The second technical issue is to enhance the indicators so they are more analytic and informative.
 

Plausible and Measurable Goals
 

Generating community goals or objectives through a visioning process is a major task. Adopting them greatly increases sense of purpose and focus in a community – and brings an accountability dimension to the LGA. Transparency of intentions is marked, the results are more pointed, and community understanding is improved. An LGA that provides explicit and measurable goals or objectives makes an express commitment to gauging performance, monitoring policy, and managing the community in accordance with the city’s goals and objectives.
 

A reality is that handling goals is difficult. Many that appear in CIPs are intangible. “Improve citizen well-being” is an example. Such goals defy definition and measurement unless they are elaborated, perhaps by using a series of objectives, each paired with an indicator. In addition, the complexity embedded in many goals in CIPs often brings internal contradictions. Deconstructing complex goals will help but does not necessarily remove the conflict. Sometimes there is no solution to the mutual incompatibility of a goal set and it may be necessary to solve one problem well and forget about the other (Dorner 1996). An example of a particularly complex multi-concept goal comes from the Santa Monica CIP:-
 

“Encourage the development of compact, mixed-use, pedestrian oriented projects designed to maximize affordable housing, encourage walking, bicycling, use of existing and future public transit systems and the creation of community gardens.”  (City of Santa Monica 1999).
 

Table 1: Basic Requirements for Indicators
 

Sources: for example Meadows 1998; Hart 1999; Adriaanse 1995; Redefining Progress 1995
 

Most of these concepts and activities are in common parlance in government but they are not as tangible as they seem. Words like “encourage” and “maximize” provoke performance measurement difficulties for they give no indication of how much is sufficient. While the goal is plausible, measuring it requires deconstruction, perhaps into objectives. It is possible with care and skill. Some objectives will require only one indicator but others may need several observations because the underlying concepts are subject to varying interpretations. For example “encouraging bicycling” could be detailed by measuring improvements in the length of dedicated bike path available and the length of bike lanes striped on roadways. However the indicator remains an input, not an output measure since there may not be a connection between the availability of safer bicycling and the number of cyclists using bike paths.
 

Targets and Standards
Closely related to goals/objectives, there is a pronounced lack of both targets and normative standards in CIPs which hinders the performance evaluation process and brings uncertainty about the meaning of some results (Hodge 1996). Having normative standards helps answer the question “how much is enough?” However, norms are rarely defined except for some of the environmental media, for example the health-based air and water quality standards. A lack of norms can be partly overcome by specifying targets so that progress can be judged, assuming agreement over the direction of change. Although numbers have an element of the arbitrary about them (for example “raise the proportion of affordable housing built to 25% of all new residential construction”) the community can argue about the numbers and help decide what the proportions should be. Collaborative targets are especially useful where many communities in a metropolitan area have no standards or differing ones. A regional CIP (for the SDTMA, for example) could be a catalyst for inter-community cooperation overcoming the problem.
 

Enhancing the Indicators

The calibre of indicators varies greatly. QOL indicators tend to be one-dimensional counts or viewpoints. They are less about looking forward and more about assessing past conditions in a community. Simplistic output measures such as the number of building permits issued, or the number of affordable houses built in a specific time period are examples. Measures like this can be helpful but they lack dimension. The literature on indicators is replete with suggestions that indicators must become more sophisticated but is short on specific techniques (Redefining Progress 1999; Hart 1999). Enhancement in the first example would be to give an idea of building durability or the proportion of permits issued that incorporate energy efficiency measures. In the second example it might be the degree to which housing provision is meeting demand at certain income levels. However, even simple input indicators may contain hidden values. The building permits example takes on deeper meaning if it seeks to establish how much developable land remains within the urban growth boundary for instance.
 

Generally, though, it is rare for a single indicator to say anything profound on its own. Elementary measures usually ignore the complexity behind the phenomena being monitored and do not explore the relationships in a system (Levett 1996). A diagrammatic example of linkage in the water quality arena is in Figure 2. The Alamar River is a tributary of the Tijuana River in the SDTMA. A goal for the Alamar River might be to improve water quality. Achieving the goal would bring numerous benefits such as improving its aesthetic qualities and increasing its food potential. The water quality indicator might reveal a serious state of pollution but on its own the indicator is of little value. Support indicators bringing in social and economic phenomena can hint at connections that provide a fuller picture. Indicators monitoring negative effects (on the right side of the diagram) trigger responses, examples of which are shown on the left side of the figure. In theory each would be monitored using a separate set of indicators. In practice this degree of attention rarely happens but tracing links like this highlights the inter-connected nature of many of our activities and makes us more aware of the pathways to improving quality of life.

 

Producing a composite or more profound indicator implies the use of additional measures with extra data needed. However, there are exceptions to the “additive” indicator – for example vehicle miles traveled and impervious surface cover - might be termed “system” indicators since they require limited data but encompass many potent issues. Indicator enhancement is discussed at two levels in this paper. The first is the use of system indicators. The second is more generally about enhancing the informative nature of mediocre indicators. We do not deal with the matter of thematic balance across the indicators in this paper. It would be a simple matter to add several indicators to the infant SDTMA CIP to improve its technical balance. It would be logical to use the bio-diversity indicators that appear in the EPA/SEMARNAT’s indicator program (1998) for example, but it would be premature to modify the program until process is enhanced.
 

Employing System Indicators
 

System indicators are deceptively simple statements that are quite profound on closer examination. Our environmental knowledge allows us to infer connections beneath the surface meaning of the measure. There are few “super-indicators” at this point but two are briefly described here. One is impermeable surface cover (ISC). Impermeable surfaces chiefly consist of asphalt, concrete and roof surfaces and cover a large proportion of our urban areas. Rainfall cannot filter into the ground and a separate and costly effort is needed to collect stormwater to prevent flooding and damage. Reducing ISC is a goal of urban management and it serves as a proxy for several urbanization impacts. The threads of this indicator draw natural resource planning, site design, and the post-development minimization of environmental impacts together (Arnold and Gibbons 1996). Figure 3 illustrates several dimensions of the indicator. There are implicit causal relationships between impervious surface cover and, for example, water quality outcomes or urban heat island effects. Remarkably, the indicator does not require large quantities of data and even the initial information collection effort to establish existing ISC can be done expeditiously using aerial photography (Blair and Prasad 2004). 

Although it is not as systemic as ISC, a second indicator might be “commuting time”. A related indicator often appearing in CIPs is “vehicle miles travelled” (VMT). Both are connected with highway transportation efficiency and congestion, especially during the journey to and from work. Highway congestion is mainly a function of greater vehicle use and the availability and patronage of public transport. The indicators are important for the direct connections with air quality and less directly with water quality via run-off from roads and streets. The connections between higher VMT, commuting time and air quality may be strong if conventionally fuelled autos are used but not all causes of increased commuting time are due to congestion. Moreover, this kind of indicator raises difficult questions such as how to reduce VMT in an era of personalized travel. It is one of Ritter’s ‘wicked’ problems, that is, a problem that defies ready solution (Rittel 1973).



Improving Conventional Indicators
 

The focus groups generated indicators for the embryonic program for the SDTMA, many of which were simplistic. We have modified some of them to show how they can yield more information and make a stronger contribution to planning policy. We have also attempted to produce guidelines for application to all CIPs. Table 2 summarizes the examples.
 

Example 1: Building Permits
An example of looking ahead and simultaneously constructing a more descriptive indicator concerns the simple measure of building permit approvals. Just measuring the number issued ignores the durability and quality of construction. An indicator tracing “green” construction could embrace these characteristics but criteria would have to be defined to establish what we meant by green construction. The indicator might track the number of new homes and renovated dwellings that incorporated environmentally sensitive features like passive solar design and water conservation. Simple input indicators do not necessarily lack dimension but their underlying meaning needs to be made transparent for presentation and reporting purposes. In the building permit example it would mean adding a related indicator to reflect the spatial issue of urban growth boundaries.
 

Example 2: Homes Provided with Plumbing, Sewer and Electricity
It would be easy to dismiss this indicator, suggested by the San Diego focus group, as an overly simplistic measure but it is highly significant in the Tijuana portion of the metropolitan CIP. It speaks strongly to pollution prevention through sewering programs, public health protection and quality of life in general. However, the numbers of homes provided with these urban services could rise while at the same time the proportion could diminish. Hence both aspects need to be encapsulated by the indicator. It would also be useful to turn the indicator on its head – to surround it with data on the proportion of housing remaining without access to these facilities and to provide a target for overcoming the deficit. Urban maintenance and repair is also an important function of government and introducing a further dimension relating to the age and condition of the sewer system and its leakiness might also be useful. While an indicator does not provide a solution to a problem, drawing attention to issues might lead to alternative site-based solutions. In this example it might be to a concept of utility provision which is commensurate with urban water cycle management.
 

Table 2: Enhancing indicators: Examples from the SDTMA CIP
 

Example 3: Water Consumption
Surface water and groundwater are scarce resources in south-western North America and tracking Tijuana’s (and San Diego’s) consumption through the CIP is vital. An example from the Tijuana suite has as much a social as an environmental dimension. The indicator reads “The number and percentage of people being served with potable water”. The indicator could be rotated and upgraded to an outcome indicator, for example “Provide access to potable water for the remaining 15% of the population lacking the service by 2010.” The indicator becomes a form of response measure with a target attached for transparent performance evaluation.

Even so it is a rather simplistic indicator because it does not reveal the relationship of consumption to supply. Tracking per capita and total consumption in relation to the longevity of the aquifer would be significantly more informative (Klein 1997). The SDTMA focus groups demonstrated their awareness of the water supply issue by suggesting methods of extending supply, proposing a water recycling indicator – “Percent of water recycled”. It is a response indicator, a measure that is designed to track performance of a new or modified policy stance, taken to respond to a resource supply problem. It is one way of enhancing the information provided by the prime water supply indicator. The supplementary recycling indicator may not need enhancing but it would be useful to track progress in providing recycled water to new development, for instance, or track the proportion of aquifer replenishment contributed by recharge of recycled water. Tracking the proportion of new development equipped with features like dual plumbing, low flow fittings, and drip irrigation would be used though it may be unnecessary if such tactics are mandatory.
 

Considering resources supplementary to aquifer water and linking them to projected population growth extends the analysis into solution-searching and the policy arena. A composite indicator like this might read – “Per capita water use in relation to sustainable yield in the SDTMA.” A graph of water consumption could be accompanied by a sustainable yield curve which would incorporate population movements and projected recycled water yield. Targets could be included in the graph. Achieving this degree of  sophistication is not just a matter of writing a slick indicator. Significantly more data is required compared with the relatively simple input measure and data may be very difficult to acquire. However, the effort to create this kind of analytic indicator should be justifiable given the critical nature of water supplies in the SDTMA and elsewhere in the world.
 

Example 4: Housing Price and Affordability
The socio-economic indicator from the SDTMA program measures median house price. It is both one-dimensional and an economic statement of little value (Hart 1999). It ignores the issue of resident income and affordability. A more searching indicator linking the social and economic domains might be “Percent of income paid for housing” which suggests concern for affordability. Transformation to a really sophisticated and inquisitive indicator would connect income, housing stocks, house prices, and expenditure on shelter more deliberately, for example “Percent of housing stock affordable for households earning 50% of the median income”). It is an inquisitive indicator which burrows more deeply into questions of social equity and income polarization.
 

Example 5: Life Expectancy
This is a basic indicator which simply tells us what the length of lifespan is for the average person and how it has varied over time. There is no suggestion of what constitutes an acceptable lifespan though state and national averages can act as a guide. Inferences cannot be drawn about the quality of that lifespan either. A proactive indicator might be phrased “Expected years of healthy life” though this is a deceptively simple outcome indicator. It is almost a “system” indicator for it integrates many social, economic, and environmental factors from the entire urban system influencing human health. Such an indicator might point to the superficiality of measuring inputs such as money spent on hospitals. The latter is an easy indicator to operationalize, the former very difficult without much research, not the least difficulty being to define “healthy life”.
 

Possible Drawbacks of Complex and Analytic Indicators
Multi-dimensional indicators are especially valuable for a proactive LGA that is committed to policy management but two cautionary points need to be made. First, it is not always possible to enhance indicators. Second, data needs usually increase as more dimensions are added to a measure to explore potential connections. There is an alternative way of gaining “linkage” across domains which is to present a bundle of measures for the same theme and then to gauge relationships intuitively. Nevertheless, this approach does not require any less data or research effort. It may be a reason why CIPs are weak in applying inquisitive principles to indicator formation – heavy research and data requirements.
 

Despite the cautionary note, three provisional principles of indicator construction can be drawn at this point:-

1.  An indicator can be more analytic and informative by attaching related data to the core element. An example would be to add aquifer information to a potable water consumption indicator as noted above; 

2.   A policy initiative can be reflected by transforming a simple input measure to a response indicator, for example the water recycling indicator and capacity of the aquifer; 

3.   An indicator can be transformed from input to outcome by rotating it. An example is to take the Tijuana indicator about the proportion of the population served with potable water and make it much more policy responsive - “Provide potable water for the remaining 15% of the population lacking the service by 2010.”

Conclusion

Evaluating urban performance, considering the issues raised by the monitoring process, responding to perceived problems, and compiling an annual or biennial report, requires significantly more than an appropriate suite of indicators. First, if an indicator program is to be designed which does more than gather data and simply monitor environmental conditions, considerable thought is needed about the participation - information – implementation connection. A prime purpose of any CIP should ultimately be its proactive use for policy adjustment. A CIP which possesses low levels of participation in the indicator construction process and lack of resident and business representation is unlikely to be widely supported. Designing a fully participatory and representative CIP is time consuming and expensive but an intensive participation exercise can do much to overcome future obstacles. There are several advantages and noteworthy precedents exist. It helps build community awareness across many facets of society, brings wider acceptance and allows attention to be devoted to resolving difficult issues. There is likely to be far greater support and involvement in the monitoring and measuring process which will result in a much more productive monitoring tool. In sum, meaningful participation in program building is an investment in operationalizing the CIP in the long term. It encourages the kind of changes in behaviour that will contribute to effective policy management through the planning, budgeting and decision-making process.

Second, lack of community awareness and involvement in the program’s construction means behaviour change will be difficult to achieve. As Innes (1997 p. 56) said – “Information does not influence unless it represents a socially constructed and shared understanding created in the community of policy actors”. A convincing effort in the process of constructing a participatory CIP will add transparency to management, help with subsequent monitoring activities, may encourage the decision-making authority to take an active policy management, rather than a laissez faire, stance and overall, contribute to better governance.     

Thirdly, a CIP also has an important communication function in educating, informing, and linking diverse communities. Again, a CIP constructed with minimal resident input will have difficulty fulfilling this function. Fourth, a CIP has considerable potential for coordinating the numerous organizations within a large metropolitan centre working on environmental, human health and natural resource problems. It will be difficult to capitalize on this function if urban managers and civic leaders have little awareness of, or stake in, the CIP. Fifth, a CIP without goals or objectives runs the risk of stagnating as a tracking device, without policy dimension. Certainly, gaining agreement on community goals over large multi-agency geographical areas will be difficult. However, it was apparent in the unusually diverse international metropolitan area of San Diego-Tijuana that a number of common indicators were proposed by the focus groups. There are also similar state/federal regulations covering the environmental media in the twin cities spanning the US-Mexico BiNational Region which can also lead to common goals. There are a number of precedents for regionally oriented programs run by both LGAs and NGOs. There is also the objectives-based EPA/SEMARNAP indicator program (1998). All this amounts to a persuasive case for providing a context of goals and objectives for a monitoring program. Creating one that has been generated by the community enhances its purposefulness dramatically.

Finally, there is the question of enhancing one of the key technical aspects of CIPs – the indicators. Composite or multi-dimensional indicators are especially valuable for an LGA that is committed to policy management. However, the calibre of the modified indicators in Table 2 do not invalidate the simpler measures. Indeed, it is not always possible to build multi-dimensional indicators. Launching a straight-forward CIP might be more attractive initially than a CIP with a suite of complex indicators posing heavy research and data requirements. This may be a reason why CIPs are weak in applying inquisitive principles to indicator formation – heavy research and data requirements. There may be other reasons, too: sophisticated, multi-dimensional indicators will be seen by some as good governance and others as unacceptably ideological. An indicator which starkly presents the proportion of people in the lower income groups and their ability to purchase basic needs may be avoided by some LGAs on political grounds. Paradoxically composite indicators could hinder general policy change and other aspects of program implementation. In any event, the search for a highly sophisticated connector may be less important than making difficult decisions based on values, facts, and discussion of alternative policy options. The challenge for such a monitoring system is as much administrative as it is technical.

Acknowledgment

Research was sponsored by the Southwestern Centre for Environmental Research and Policy, based in San Diego State University, San Diego, California. SCERP Project Number EIR-01-5.


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