Leland Avenue Street Fair Photo by VVBOOM

Did you know that parties are important for communities?

I was recently reviewing a tool used to measure the health of the communities. One of the items measured is the number of block parties held in a neighborhood.

Not long after I came to San Francico I participated in the testing of the Healthy Development Measurement Tool. Yes, the name is a mouth-full, but it is to-the-point. Developed by the San Francisco Department of Health, the tool uses a number of metrics to determine if a development, as proposed, will contribute to or harm the health of a community. These types of tools, in the category of health impact assessments, have been getting more traction in communities, in the US and internationally, as residents try to quantify the expected and/or touted outcomes of new development. It gives community members a way evaluate projects in their neighborhood and compare with the rest of the city or even state or national averages.

I was looking through the tool recently and discovered that one of the metrics (called indicators in the tool) is “Number of neighborhood block party permits”. This indicator comes under the Social Cohesion portion (called elements) of the tool.
Continue reading ‘forget dinner, have a block party’