Our 2012 Quality of Life Dashboard findings show that San Diego County outranks not only the California state average, but also San Francisco, Orange County, and even LA County when it comes to VMT per capita per day.

January 24, 2011 (San Diego, CA) – The third annual report card of the San Diego region’s quality of life was released today by non-partisan research group Equinox Center, revealing that current election rhetoric is out of synch with critical regional priority areas. The 2012 San Diego Regional Quality of Life Dashboard identifies three key trends in which the region has moved in the wrong direction in the past year, threatening economic prosperity and environmental health: soaring cost of living and rising traffic and waste production.

Among key findings in the 2012 Dashboard? More than half of all San Diego households are feeling the pinch of high housing costs right now.

The percent of households who spend more than a third of their income on housing is a key indicator of our region’s housing affordability and also our overall quality of life. And that number has risen yet again in San Diego County.

“I am fascinated with trash,” Rhodes says. “Where does it go? How can we reduce, reuse and recycle? Why is there so much of it!?”

Having attracted some 50 fellow “Pack Your Trash” experimenters, Rhodes’ campaign also attracted the attention of KGTV San Diego’s Channel 10 News. (Click here to watch!)

This is what all 60+ employees who work in DPR Construction's net-zero energy regional headquarters in San Diego experience every day.

Before we do, you can test your regional “quality of life IQ” and enter to win prizes from Mitch’s La Jolla, Patagonia and National Geographic. See below for prize details and...

click here to take the quiz!

(Oops: we’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on our 2012 Quality of Life Dashboard –- check back on January 24 to download it hot off the press! -- so Factoid Friday comes out on Saturday this week.)

Where do most industry-produced greenhouse gas emissions in America come from? New data released by the EPA shows that power plants are responsible for 72.3 percent of reported emissions.

And who has the highest total emissions from power plants and refineries? Don’t mess with Texas, indeed! 294 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent are spewed into the atmosphere each year through Texas’ power plants and refineries alone.

More than 80 percent of the San Diego region's water supply is imported. Some studies estimate that up to 10 percent of that is wasted in transmission due to leaky pipes and aging infrastructure.

What can you do about it? Support efforts to expand our local water supply.

"I want to help them change San Diego for the better so that generations to come can enjoy the city we love."

San Diego commuters spend 100% more time sitting in traffic today than we did 20 years ago (about 37 hours per year), yet 76 percent of us still drive to work alone.

What would you do with those 37 hours if you had them back?

What might your letter to Santa look like this year?

Dear Santa,

I wish for effective government. And for balanced solutions about how our region's economy and environment can both flourish. And while you're at it, I'd like someone to solve our region's traffic problems, water issues, high cost of living and insufficient high-paying jobs. 

Yours truly. 

If this sounds familiar, you're not alone.   

And you're in luck: Equinox Center is there for you. At the end of the day, effective government is really what we're about.  

Will you make an investment in effective government right now? 

"It is a pivotal time for San Diego and therefore really critical for citizen involvement, strong policy decisions, and action to lead the region down the road of truly becoming a model for sustainability," says Kristine.

 Fact: the grain currently fed to the United States' 7 billion livestock could feed about 800 million people.

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Q: What drew you to become involved with Equinox Center?

A: The work Equinox Center does in the region makes us reflect on our own behaviors. We learn something about ourselves and realize that collectively -- not city by city, but together as a region -- we can create positive change. We see where we each have a part.

From 7:00 a.m. Wednesday, December 14 to 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 15, any online donation you make to Equinox Center through the giveBIG San Diego online event hosted by The San Diego Foundation, will be matched.

Click here for more.

We're even going to up the ante! For every gift of $100 or more we receive today, Equinox's staff will commit to riding our bikes to work for a period of one week. Consider it a free carbon offset!

If you haven't voiced your choice yet, it's not too late! Here's our earlier blog posting about what it's all about:

By now many of you have heard about “Our Greater San Diego Vision,” an unprecedented effort to engage tens of thousands of San Diegans to create a 50- to 100-year vision for our future.

We just went through the process of “voicing our choice” at http://ourgreatersandiegovision.org/equinox. Here’s how it works . . .

Easy fix to lower your energy bill? When you want to really turn it off, unplug it. The “off” button generally only turns off the clock display.

Meet Dave Louie, Fund Development and Marketing Volunteer

Meet Dylan Wood, Equinox Research Fellow

In the long term, the Chamber’s Green Business Program is intended foster a culture of sustainability throughout National City that will continue to attract green or “clean” businesses to the city and ultimately result in a reduced carbon footprint for National City and a more healthy and prosperous community overall.

Major decisions that impact the region’s future economy, environment and quality of life are being made every day, without the voices of its future leaders.*

That changes today with the launch of Leaders 2020.

Equinox Center played a crucial role in this advancement, providing expert counsel, written comments and empirical research on strategies to ensure a sustainable water supply for the region.

“The Young & Restless are a Human Resource director’s demographic dream . . . They want the American dream, and they are willing to work hard to achieve it. They do their search in reverse. They pick the city — and then they look for a job. They are highly focused on a particular lifestyle.”

It’s a fascinating and important regional conversation continuing from Equinox Center's September event with the San Diego Regional EDC, “The Young & Restless: Winning the Race for America’s Best Talent.” The above quote comes from San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Barbara Bry, who recently weighed in on the topic, noting the tight connection between quality of life and our region's future economic prosperity.

For more on this, including what San Diego can do to attract the Young & Restless, read the full Union-Tribune article here, check out Equinox Center’s resource page http://www.equinoxcenter.org/restless.html, or join the ongoing regional dialogue through the San Diego Quality of Life Network.

That sounds a lot like Equinox Center’s vision for the San Diego region itself: that San Diego County will be a model for sustainability and quality of life. Just like Lowitt’s findings for businesses, our research has shown that we can get there by connecting our region’s current disparate, but well-intentioned strategies for our water and energy supply, land planning, transportation and economic development, into a more integrated and cohesive long-term sustainability infused strategy.

As part of our ongoing series, “The Bottom Line” (click here to subscribe), we asked Lowitt to guest author a blog piece for us on the topic of crafting a “sustainability infused strategy” and how one San Diego company has successfully applied this principle.

Here is the story of San Diego’s Hitachi Data Systems, in Lowitt’s words...

David Zetland, Senior Water Economist and author of The End of Abundance: Economic Solutions to Water Scarcity will speak on “Three Easy Steps to Sustainable Water Management in Southern California” next Wednesday, October 5th at 6:30 pm at The San Diego Foundation.  The event is free to attend, refreshments will be served, and parking is free.

At Equinox Center, our namesake is that moment of perfect balance—between winter and spring, summer and fall, between day and night, east and west.

In astronomy, “equinox” is the precise moment when the sun crosses the plane of the Earth's equator, meaning days and nights are of near equal length, the sun rises due east and sets due west. Following today’s autumnal equinox, the sun will shine less directly on the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in shorter, colder days.

Twice a year, the equinox serves to remind us that in nature, we see balance everywhere.  At Equinox Center, today’s cosmic event reminds us that our mission—to ensure a healthy environment, vibrant communities and a strong economy for the San Diego region—is in its essence the pursuit of a more perfect balance.

In the meantime, visit our Young & Restless resource page, where you can find key takeaways and downloads relating to strategies for the San Diego region to better attract and retain talented, college-educated 25-34 year olds -- and why doing so is vital to our region's economic prosperity.

Equinox Center, San Diego Regional EDC and San Diego’s Top Business Leaders Convene on Strategies to Attract the “Young & Restless”

September 15, 2011 (San Diego, CA) – World-class research institutions and spectacular weather drew the last generation of entrepreneurs to the San Diego region, but it will take more than that to attract America’s brightest young talent here today, say Equinox Center and the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation (EDC). The two organizations yesterday convened more than 100 of the region’s business and community leaders to explore new solutions to attract and retain young talent to the region.

An additional 650,000 people are expected to live in the San Diego region by the year 2030. How our region manages its land, water, energy, transportation and economic planning through that growth will profoundly impact the quality of life of those who live here.

Equinox Center's new "It's Personal" video storytelling project, in partnership with 10News, spotlights the real-life stories of San Diegans whose lives have been impacted by these issues.

Everyone has a story, what's yours? Share it with us in a few words or in a brief video and you could be interviewed by 10News.

Everyone has a story. What's yours? 

Are you an aspiring sustainability professional with outstanding research skills or a gift for persuasion? Are you a current graduate student? If so, we want you!

Free public workshops are taking place all over town next week. Visit http://ourgreatersandiegovision.org/events to sign up today.

We are proud to be a community partner of The San Diego Foundation for this important initiative.

This summer, the City of San Diego unveiled its first ever recycled drinking water project. Fittingly, the unveiling occurred almost two years to the date of Equinox Center’s official founding . . . Seeing the recycled water project come to fruition was a gratifying moment for many of us involved with Equinox from the very beginning, as the organization had played an instrumental role in this outcome.

'Before we just revert to business as usual, there is this opportunity to really engage in a very transparent regional dialogue about our water situation,' said Ann Tartre, executive director of the Equinox Center, a sustainability research group in Encinitas. 'I think the time is now.'"

To read the full article, visit: http://www.sdbj.com/news/2011/aug/08/nonprofit-profile-ann-tartre/ Or if you don't have an SDBJ subscription, email us for a copy.

Brace yourselves for a seismic shift in our labor markets. The growth of the U.S. population conceals decline in a pivotal segment: college-educated young adults--the backbone of tomorrow's innovation economy. As regions compete for these "Young & Restless," they are learning they won't be courted by just any suitor. Place matters.

What can the San Diego region do to attract and retain this vital future workforce?

Economist, Brookings Institution fellow and senior policy advisor to CEOs for Cities Joseph Cortright has the answer. Join Equinox Center and the San Diego Regional EDC for a special event on September 14, 2011 and you will too.

If someone told you that chemicals known as PBDEs are building up in the environment throughout the United States, how urgently would you want to do something about it? What if you heard that 100 percent of nursing mothers studied in your region were found to have breast milk contaminated with toxic flame retardants? Which information would motivate you to immediate, decisive action?

In the Pacific Northwest in late 2004, both of these statements were found to be true. By 2007, the state of Washington had implemented the strongest regulation in the country against use of PBDEs—toxic flame retardants—and several other states had banned their use.

What caused this sea change? Simply put, better data and a finesse for words.

What is the 2050 RTP?

If you have 60 seconds to spare and want to know more about what this could mean for San Diego's future water supply, check out this brief video slideshow...

Reducing our overall waste disposal in the region is good news on all fronts. Landfills eventually fill up, and new ones are neither easy nor cheap to build. What’s more, the “NIMBY” (“Not in My Backyard”) challenge is more or less a given for any proposed new landfill, regardless of location, as are environmental and political concerns.

The truth is that we don’t need a recession to cut back our region’s waste production, nor do we need to return to "business as usual" as economic momentum is regained.

Have you ever casually read the nutrition label of a favorite so-called healthy food, only to realize it had vastly more sodium or sugar than you thought?

That head-smacking moment brought to you by the advent of nutrition labels may not change your eating habits, but at least allows you to make an informed decision.  

Just as the benefits of healthy eating are widely accepted, drought or no drought, it is well known that more efficient utilization must be a part of our region' strategy to diversify its water portfolio if prices are to remain under control and future supply assured.  

During Equinox Center’s Friday, May 6 convening with State Senator Christine Kehoe, Laurie Berman, District Director for the California Department of Transportation, and local business and community leaders, participants raised a number of thoughtful questions—ones which have yet to be discussed in the press, despite the nearly 100 articles covering the I-5 widening in the past year.

There wasn’t room to include all of these in our Voice of San Diego commentary, but they are important and we want to ensure they see the light of day.

The lively and pointed questions surrounding the proposed widening of the northern corridor of I-5 have provided fascinating reading on Voice of San Diego and other media.

But I must confess that the public debate around the widening gives me déjà vu, flashbacks to similar ones surrounding the proposed toll road through San Onofre State Park, or potential closing of the Cabrillo bridge in Balboa Park, among others. The conversations often seem focused on a piecemeal approach to our region's long-term growth challenges.