Assessing Regional Performance:

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Assessing Regional Performance

• SOTRs Lessons on Environmental Quality and Land
  Use Planning
• Barry Boyer
• SUNY Buffalo

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Why are we doing this?

• Because you cant manage
• what you cant measure

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Implied in the slogan

• Management without measurement is ineffective

• Measurement without management is pointless

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Not mentioned in the slogan

• Because you wont get funded if you cant measure
  your performance!

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Alsoa matter of regional consciousness

• Reducing border blindness
• Competing as a region (IDAs, e.g.)
• Understanding that we live (or die) as a region,
  not in silos
• Learning to play well together

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The starting point

• Who is (are) our audience(s)?
• Will the indicators be useful (understandable,
  relevant) to them?
• Will the indicators be used by them?
• What decisions may be influenced?
• What are the constraints/pressures on those
  decisions?

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Scoping the Task SOTRs Eleven Key Topic Areas
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Getting Community Buy-In

• Task force for each issue area
• Diverse but expert opinion leaders
• PR and public outreach

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SOTR by the Numbers

• 208 task force members
• 75 task force meetings
• 2 faculty
• 1 staffers
• 8 graduate assistants
• 1000 phone calls
• Just to get to our initial report

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Whats In an Indicator?

• Regional overview
• Defining the region
• Geography
• Demographics
• Governance
• Economic Structure (mfg. to services)

• Data sources and notes

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What did we get out of this?
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Some good newsAir fares . . .
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. . . and air quality
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Some bad newsReal earnings . . .
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. . . and sprawl
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Some surprises, such asdistribution of toxics
sources . . .
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. . . and uncompetitive energy costs
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Some things to work ontourism plus and minus
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News coverage ofWestern New York
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Frustrations of the Indicators Game
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Some data had to be collected at retail
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Some data sets didnt tell us very much
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Some data sets measure yesterdays problems some
things you want to know are very hard to measure

• Impervious surfaces
• Ecosystem health
• Sustainability

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Some take-away lessons

• AUDIENCEwho wants or needs to know this?
• Be realistic in budget and staffing
• Look for partners (e.g., academic institutions)
• Be creativeits as much art as science
• Engage the opinion leaders
• Have good graphics capability (GIS, layout)
• K.I.S.S.

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Surfing SOTR

• http//regional-institute.buffalo.edu/prog/sotr.ht
  ml