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What is ACT Rochester?
The goal of ACT Rochester is to build on community strengths to help solve our critical problems. ACT Rochester will achieve this through community debate, discussion and engagement based on objective, timely and independent data that can reshape our approach to community problem-solving.
In addition to a wide array of community indicators, ACT Rochester interprets the information through trend summaries, charts and graphs. Information is provided on current efforts to advance our region, as well as links to more than 300 local community resources. ACT Rochester plans to use this wealth of information in public dialog to find ways to improve our community.
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Are there other cities that do similar work?
Yes, over 1,000 communities around the world have undertaken indicator initiatives. The very first indicator project, Quality of Life in Jacksonville: Indicators for Progress, was started over 20 years ago in Jacksonville, Fla. Indicator projects have been established in large regions like Southern California (population 17.1 million) and in small ones like Burlington, Vt. (population 39,000). Some notable examples include Boston, Mass., Spartanburg, S.C., and Toronto and Ottawa, Canada.
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Who participated in the development of ACT Rochester?
ACT Rochester is a joint venture of Rochester Area Community Foundation and the United Way of Greater Rochester. A task force, comprised of board members from both organizations, is guiding its development. Funding was also provided by the Gannett Foundation and the Center for Governmental Research, Fund for the Public Interest. CGR provided most of the data and analysis; Logical Solutions designed the website. In addition, more than 100 members of the community participated in meetings to help us select appropriate indicators.
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Do you plan to translate the site into Spanish?
We are currently studying the best way to make the site accessible to the Spanish-speaking community. The site does include breakdowns by ethnicity when that data was available and reliable. Click on Indicator Summary on the top of each Topic Home page to find out which indicators have this data. (This feature will be available soon!)
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What do you mean by the Rochester region and how did you decide what areas to cover?
A region generally refers to a central city and all of the surrounding areas that support that city and are supported by it. Sometimes this is thought of as an economic region or market area. Definitions of the Rochester Region usually vary from a single county (Monroe) to a larger area of up to 10 counties. For this project, we have selected a seven-county region, Monroe, the five surrounding counties and Wyoming County. These are the counties currently served by the United Way of Greater Rochester.
For ACT Rochester, the region generally consists of the following counties: Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Wayne and Wyoming. Most indicators have data for this seven-county region. However, in some instances, data is not available for all areas. As described in response to a question in About the Data, the 2006 American Community Survey only provides data for counties larger than 65,000 people. For our region, that subset includes Monroe, Ontario and Wayne counties.