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a. Sustainable Seattle: A National Model Indicators
for Sustainable Community - Seattle, Washington The Seattle project was organized by Sustainable Seattle, a volunteer organization made up of individuals from city and county government, environment, business and labor, religious, and social activism communities in Seattle and the surrounding Puget Sound region. Seattle's project progress through five critical stages.3 At an initial meeting of 16 people, the Global Tomorrow Coalition developed a mission statement and a definition of sustainability. Next, they appointed a group of 25 trustees to assist in the definition of the project and serve as advisors during the identification of the indicators and the research. The trustees were community leaders representing all sectors of the community. As community leaders they also helped to insure that the indicator project would be used effectively in other projects and research. Third, a "task team" was then put together to generate the first 150 draft indicators. The fourth step involved bringing together approximately 250 leaders and activists from business, government, academia, nonprofit organizations, and the general public. The first panel was held in December of 1992 and was meant to give direction and promote community ownership of the project. The panel reviewed and amended the indicator list. Then four more civic panels and additional subcommittee meetings were held over the next five months. They generated 99 indicators, grouped into ten topic areas. In the last stage, the task team selected 40 of the 99 indicators for research and publication. The Indicators for Sustainable Community document was then sent to government agencies, community organizations, schools, businesses, and the general public for review. This project has served as a template for many other indicator projects. It was comprehensive, included intense public involvement, and continued into the future with objectives and revisions. It had less direct impact on local government than other projects due to its "bottom-up" process, but with its diverse and active membership, this project has made a considerable impact on Seattleís (and many other placesí) path towards sustainability. In Indicators of Sustainable Community, Sustainable Seattle determined five main categories under which most aspects of sustainability fit: Environment, Population and Resources, Economy, Youth and Education, and Health and Community. Table 1 summarizes these subject areas and their associated indicators and sources of data.
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