Former New York mayor Ed Koch used to ask New Yawkers, "How am I doing?" A coalition of 60 Tristate groups spent three years trying to answer that question for the entire eight-county Cincinnati region. They came up with 14 indicators to measure how we're doing building a "sustainable" community that can prosper without sacrificing healthy ecosystems.

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Sustainable Cincinnati's first take isn't a rave for the region. But as other cities that measure sustainability know, the real value of indicators is to look at them over a period of years and see if trend lines move in a healthy or unhealthy direction, then do something about it.

One of the most worrisome indicators here is the brain drain of young professionals. Between 1995 and 1999, the region's young adult population, ages 20 to 35, declined by 5.3 percent. If our own kids don't see a future here, we know we're in trouble. Such indicators take us beyond anecdotes to hard numbers. They take the question of whether a region can sustain itself out of just the work place and into our homes.

Hamilton County's overall population last year lost more than 7,000, a faster decline than that of all other large counties except San Francisco and San Mateo.

Another indicator, still lacking hard numbers, is if we graduate high-school seniors who are "work-ready" or "college-ready." One measure is how many graduates need remedial courses. We should collect such data, however embarrassing. Collecting them as a region can help mobilize us to become more competitive.

Some of Sustainable Cincinnati's opening shots may be little more than snapshots, but others suggest enough of a trend to demand reversal. In the 14-county region, overweight rates rose from 56 to 61 percent in just two years. Adults without health insurance jumped from 7.4 to 10 percent. The county-by-county percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots in 2002 averaged less than 41 percent. The pesky thing about yearly indicators is you can run but you cannot hide from numbers.

The coalition didn't presume to define what the ideal equilibrium should be for a sustainable Cincinnati, but we will know it if we see it.

Tony Lang