Resident Survey to Measure Community and Economic Well-being in the Katahdin Region
October 1, 2019 Update: Thank you for your interest in the Katahdin Region Community Survey. The 2019 survey has been completed and we are no longer accepting responses at this time.
The Katahdin Region’s community leaders, people who are leading a community impacted by catastrophic job loss, need a current economic and social snapshot of the region so they can strategically apply resources and make informed decisions. As a result, members of the community have asked the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions to develop a framework to:
- Identify benchmark quantitative and qualitative indicators for measuring economic and community resilience, and use these to examine patterns of change in the various towns of the Katahdin Region over time;
- Compare these indicators and patterns with other areas that have similar socio-economic and geographical compositions;
- Identify the potential tipping points and policy levers associated with these indicators; and
- Define the measures of success that these metrics can help identify/quantify as the region moves forward.
A key part of this research is to use surveys to collect information about resident perceptions of their communities and help gather ideas about how the area could grow socially and economically. As a result, we asked residents from the Katahdin Region to fill out a questionnaire that asks a number of questions about the community that they live in. The purpose of the survey component of the study is to better understand resident’s views of community and economic well-being in the region.
The results of this research will be valuable to town planners, community organizers, economic development personnel, state and federal agencies, local, state, and national government officials, and business owners. With these results, a range of stakeholders collectively working to grow the Katahdin Region will be more informed about what their residents think about their community. Additionally, economic developers can use this information to help attract and support new businesses. Finally, this information will help make decisions to support the economic growth and community well-being of the Katahdin Region.
If you have any questions about this study, please contact Dr. Adam Daigneault via phone at 207-581-2805 or email at adam.daigneault@maine.edu.