Before myregion.org engaged business, community, institutional leaders and the citizens of Central Florida in frank discussions about the future of our region, two years ago a local organization in the Greater Orlando area was already involved in a grassroots effort of trying to understand the elements that contribute to a healthy and sustainable community.

Formed in 1994 by a group of community stakeholders and led by myregion.org CEO Roundtable member Ray Larsen, the Healthy Community Initiative of Greater Orlando (HCI) has worked tirelessly to “create a new sense of community which leads to an environment where all individuals and families flourish.”

Orange County leaders understood that they could not have such a community without first understanding the challenges of urban sprawl, floundering public education, transient residents and low wages, among others. In order to accomplish this seemingly simple, but complex task, they first set out to explore the relationships among four areas of focus – nature, society, economy and individual well-being - in relation to their vision for the future. A measurement system was created to track whether our community is moving either toward or away from that vision. These indicators of “sustainability” are based on the belief that to succeed in building the future that we desire, we must address all four categories together.

As communities and local governments become increasingly concerned about quality of life issues, community indicators have become a widely used tool to measure the status of the quality of life and the progress being made toward improving it. Without guiding principles, we may be a community with serious water shortages, with inadequate transportation systems, and with citizen well-being and happiness faltering. To sustain this community, we need a decisive plan that begins with committed and caring individuals.

HCI published The Legacy Report 2000 and Legacy 2002, both of which used a Compass Index of Sustainability to evaluate the current condition of Orlando’s sustainability. The first report noted a score of 60 overall “points” on the sustainability scale of 100, while the second reflected an increase of 0.4 points in two years. (While some indicators are scoring better, others have declined but with the addition of new indicators and better data, things have basically remained unchanged.)

HCI’s indicators provide a starting point to help generate a growing sense of care and responsibility for the future of our communities. But as HCI recognizes in the 2002 Legacy report, “we must look at things from a regional perspective to compete in today’s world and building on the work being accomplished by myregion.org. is critical. “

After two years of intensive regional data collection and analysis, myregion.org will unveil the Central Florida SourceBook for Regional Action on July 11, 2003, summarizing the critical areas that will require regional cooperation now and into the future.

We trust that our region embraces this collaborative effort from government, businesses, institutions and citizens of the seven-county region as a foundation to start creating visions, developing strategies and policy initiatives that will help us position Central Florida as a viable competitor in the 21st century, while enhancing our quality of life.

To download the full report or to view details about indicator data, data sources, and indexing methodology, visit www.hciflorida.org.