HartLine Community Indicators Project

HartLine – Project Purpose

The Hartford Public Library, working with several partners, has recently launched a community indicators project called HartLine.  Based on work done in Baltimore and a number of other cities, a HartLine pilot project is currently being implemented.

The purpose of HartLine is to provide a way to know whether conditions are improving for those who live and work in Hartford.  More specifically, HartLine provides:

• a common yardstick for understanding how the city’s neighborhoods and overall quality of life are changing over time;
• a common threshold from which to have discussions about what is best for changing conditions;
• a mechanism to hold stakeholders accountable for moving in the right direction.

We hope that HartLine will be used as a catalyst for making decisions strategically and cooperatively for long term neighborhood improvement.

Project Principles

Several principles will be important in planning and implementing HartLine:

• Action Orientation:  HartLine will be oriented towards action.  Group process and gathering and analyzing data and information are important not in themselves but in the context of producing action and results.
• Broad-based Participation:  HartLine will be successful and sustainable only if it includes perspectives from throughout the community and engages a broad spectrum of individuals and organizations. 
• Sustainability:  HartLine will be effective only if it can be sustained in the long term.  The project must be managed efficiently.  In addition, the work of the project must be dependent on a number of organizations and agencies rather than just one or two.

Progress to Date

A pilot project is currently being implemented.  Updates will be posted to this site periodically.

For more information contact [email protected].