Magazine-style top-10 lists of the best places to live, or to raise kids, or to own pets, or to party, are not the goal, say project leaders. "It's not up to us to say certain community conditions are the ideal set," said Carolyn Adams, professor in the department of geography and urban studies and codirector of the project with Temple professor David Bartelt.
The goal is to make information available from many sources, and, in so doing, present a data-based picture of current conditions on this mosaic of nine counties, with about five million people, two million jobs, vast wealth and distressing poverty. "It brings public data to the public," said Elizabeth Halen, a Temple graduate who massages the torrent of data.
The project's 19-person advisory group includes Robert Inman, a Wharton economist; Dick Voith of Econsult Corp.; Harriet Newburger of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, formerly of Bryn Mawr College; and Howard Gillette Jr. of Rutgers University's Camden campus.
The project's Web site is loaded with information. For instance:
Did you know that there were 750,000 Medicaid recipients in the region?
Or that the Philadelphia region has 183 arts-related businesses and organizations, such as museums, per 100,000 residents? This puts it about even with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Phoenix and Pittsburgh. Boston and Minneapolis had denser concentrations: 224 for Boston and 229 for Minneapolis.
Or that 72 communities in the region have a substantial amount of land within a floodplain?
Shawn McCaney, program officer for the William Penn Foundation, said the nonprofit group funded the indicators project as a "measurable way to gauge change and performance. How are we doing with the past and with other regions?"
