Trend at a glance
The average performance of the six Cascadia Scorecard indicators with long-term trend data has improved slowly but steadily over the last several decades -- suggesting some tentative successes in our efforts to create a healthy and lasting prosperity in the Pacific Northwest.
In the chart above, the "downward" trend represents progress towards the Scorecard targets of long and healthy lives, economic security for all, efficiency in the use of energy and land, and a legacy of clean, thriving nature.
However, the long-term improvements in the average score are mostly due to two factors -- life expectancy and compact communities -- that have improved modestly but steadily for decades. For the other Scorecard trends, progress has been mixed at best.
To accelerate progress, Cascadia can focus on boosting energy efficiency, reducing stubbornly high rates of unintended pregnancies, and working towards an economic recovery that provides genuine financial security for middle- and lower-income residents.
Updated June 2010.
More about the average Score
What the Score measures
The overall Score averages the performance of the six Scorecard indicators for which trend data are available. This puts the region's progress on disparate trends into a single, unified scale.
The targets and why they were chosen
The Scorecard measures progress against real-world "models": places in the world,
or times in the region's past, in which performance on a given trend has been particularly strong.
These models don't represent ideal or "perfect" performance.
Instead, they offer real-world examples that Cascadia can aspire to match, or even exceed.
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Long-term trends
Although the Scorecard trends have never moved in lockstep, the region's aggregate Score has gradually improved over time.
(Click
for chart of six Scorecard trends.)
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The results in detail
Compared with the Scorecard's "targets"--which represent real-world examples of excellence that the Northwest can aspire to match--Cascadia's performance lags.
Even if each of the Scorecard trends, through the concerted effort of the Northwest's leaders and citizens, could be pointed
in the right direction, it would still take 42 years
of slow-and-steady progress to bring Cascadia's average performance up to the level already achieved by the Scorecard's targets.
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Map of Cascadia
Six Scorecard trends