THE PHILOSOPHY OF IMPROVEMENT IS SIMPLE:
COSTA MESA, DUE TO ITS CLOSENESS TO THE OCEAN AND IT'S TRADITIONAL SISTER CITY STATUS WITH NEWPORT BEACH, SHOULD BE A NICER CITY THAN IT IS AT PRESENT. THIS SHOULD BE REFLECTED IN VITAL STATISTICS THAT SHOW COSTA MESA IS CLOSER, IN THESE STATISTICS, TO NEWPORT BEACH THAN TO SANTA ANA.
A poster on the DP blog gets it right:
Better city wrote on Jan 3, 2008 7:52 PM:
" Starting in 2000, the people of Costa Mesa signaled that they wanted change in this city. " They said they weren't happy with crime and poor school scores and other problems and they started electing candidates for change. In 2008, I expect the people will vote to keep the change moving forward. I don't think they want to go back to the old politics of low expectations that helped Costa Mesa become a third world sanctuary. I think they know that if we lift up the Westside, we'll lift up the whole city. "
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How do we know how we are doing as a city? The same way you tell if your child is sick or not: You check vital signs.
In the case of a child, this means you take his or her temperature.
If you didn't have something to compare that temperature to, it would be meaningless.
However, we know from years of comparisons with other humans that a normal temperature is around 98.6 degrees. If your child's temperature deviates from that, you can be reasonably sure the child is sick.
If the child is then taken to a doctor, blood or other tests may be performed. These are checked against what medical science knows is normal in humans.
Improvers generally say the same type of thinking is valid for checking Costa Mesa.
That's why the CM PRESS came up with the ring of cities concept. We check the vital signs of Costa Mesa and compare them to Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Ft. Valley, Irvine and Santa Ana.
These five cities all surround Costa Mesa and touch some part of our land. By looking at our home prices, crime rates, school scores, education levels, income levels, land use percentages, number of renters vs. owners, and much more, we can see how Costa Mesa is doing.
By using this scientific and objective method to quantify how we're doing, we remove the issue from the imprecise thinking that relies on adjectives and opinions instead of facts.
Here are two posts on this subject from the DP blog that illustrate why we should use facts and statistics to tell how Costa Mesa is doing. We have removed the posters' names out of a surfeit of kindness.
Notice in the following two posts, that very few meaningful facts are given. They're mostly fluff.
Here's another poster's entry:
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How do we know how we are doing as a city? The same way you tell if your child is sick or not: You check vital signs.
In the case of a child, this means you take his or her temperature.
If you didn't have something to compare that temperature to, it would be meaningless.
However, we know from years of comparisons with other humans that a normal temperature is around 98.6 degrees. If your child's temperature deviates from that, you can be reasonably sure the child is sick.
If the child is then taken to a doctor, blood or other tests may be performed. These are checked against what medical science knows is normal in humans.
Improvers generally say the same type of thinking is valid for checking Costa Mesa.
That's why the CM PRESS came up with the ring of cities concept. We check the vital signs of Costa Mesa and compare them to Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, Ft. Valley, Irvine and Santa Ana.
These five cities all surround Costa Mesa and touch some part of our land. By looking at our home prices, crime rates, school scores, education levels, income levels, land use percentages, number of renters vs. owners, and much more, we can see how Costa Mesa is doing.
By using this scientific and objective method to quantify how we're doing, we remove the issue from the imprecise thinking that relies on adjectives and opinions instead of facts.
Here are two posts on this subject from the DP blog that illustrate why we should use facts and statistics to tell how Costa Mesa is doing. We have removed the posters' names out of a surfeit of kindness.
Notice in the following two posts, that very few meaningful facts are given. They're mostly fluff.
" Costa Mesa is truly the heart of Orange County. [No facts given] We have the preeminent performing arts venues, [No facts given] the preeminent shopping venue, universities, colleges, law school, [No facts given] the finest municipal golf courses,[No facts given] county fairgrounds, thriving commercial/industrial core [No facts given] with some of the nation's most recognizable companies, [No facts given] and beautiful, safe neighborhoods and parks.[No facts given] We have a dynamic municipal government [No facts given] that is truly responsive to its constituents.[No facts given] We have a proactive and experienced police department and one of the best fire departments in the state. [No facts given] We have a strong City Council that is working hard to continuously improve CM. [No facts given] We're doing great on our own. " [No facts given]
What you have in the above post is a strung together list of superlatives and adjectives (which we have put in bold face) with unsupported assertions of supposed fact. In other words, you have what sounds like a travel brochure or advertising copy. It's all empty opinion.
What you have in the above post is a strung together list of superlatives and adjectives (which we have put in bold face) with unsupported assertions of supposed fact. In other words, you have what sounds like a travel brochure or advertising copy. It's all empty opinion.
Here's another poster's entry:
" Okay, Tell us...So you measure quality of life by cold, hard statistics? [That's right. The cold, hard statistics are the quantification of the reality that we see. They allow us to measure things rather than rely on empty opinions] Quality of life is as each of us define it. [Not exactly. Here's a definition of quality of life: The well-being or quality of life of a population is an important concern in economics and political science. It is measured by many social and economic factors.] My family has lived in Costa Mesa for 20 years. We have never been the victim of crime, enjoy our home and the equity we've accumulated in it, and all our children received fine educations in the local schools and have moved on to higher education. [No doubt, others have similar stories. So what? We're dealing with the city as a whole. Others have been affected by crime, etc. We can't tell the quality of a city by a few anecdotal stories. That's like saying there are no cancer clusters in Costa Mesa because you don't have cancer]
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
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Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.
