Developing the First Well-Being Index for Cities

Jessica Leber writes for Fast Co. Exist about the city of Santa Monica's ongoing collaboration with RAND and the U.K.’s New Economics Foundation to develop a local well-being index. The city won funding from the project in 2013 from the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, in the hopes of developing a "'holistic' single metric for mayors to measure overall well-being." They project is targeted for completion by the end of 2014 or the beginning of 2015.

Leber explains a bit more about what to expect from the effort: "The factors that contribute to an individual’s well-being aren't mysterious: health, safety, community, and employment are a few big examples. The larger question is how to weigh these factors, what existing statistics can be used to measure them, and what new tech-enabled measurement tools to deploy."