Regional Dashboard
Methodology
Methodology
Equinox Center scanned the country for best practices in measuring sustainability and quality of life at a regional level, and vetted potential indicators for San Diego with local experts and community members. Indicators were selected based on importance to the region, availability of credible data on a regular basis, and readily understandable to the public and policy makers. A list of organizations that we consulted and/or provided data can be found under the Data Sources page. We are grateful for the assistance and believe that a collaborative process strengthens our work.
The intent is to have a countywide number for each indicator, to help us understand and plan for regional growth in an integrated way. Where possible, we broke down the data to the municipal level to aid local decision makers in taking actions that will enhance quality of life in their jurisdiction.
We used the most recent data available that was considered most accurate by the data source. In some cases, we consulted experts and then made our best judgment about which data was most appropriate to use.
All charts refer to San Diego County unless otherwise denoted in chart title or below.
In calculating per capita numbers, we consistently used demographic estimates from the California Department of Finance, with the exception of the following:
-Per capita water usage is based on population within the San Diego County Water Authority’s Service area, which does not include the entire County.
-Energy data comes from SDG&E whose service area is slightly larger than San Diego County, so per capita numbers include the service area outside of San Diego County.
-In the park access map we used 2000 Census population numbers because this is the only population data available in a GIS layer. We included any natural or open space area designated as a park in SANDAG’s land use database and conserved lands database.
If you have questions on methodology, please don’t hesitate to contact Ann Tartre at ann@equinoxcenter.org.