By David McAleese, Research Director at BE NKY Growth Partnership
Data-informed community decision-making is one of four initiatives established by BE NKY Growth Partnership as part of our Build + Elevate NKY Investor Campaign, which has raised more than $4.6 million, surpassing our $4.5 million goal.
These initiatives were created with private and public sector input and are fundamental to increasing economic prosperity in our region.
At BE NKY, we want to enable Northern Kentucky’s business and community leaders to contribute to growth in our region by providing them with data, insights, and a forum to inform better decision-making and address community challenges.
In late 2022, we launched the Northern Kentucky Atlas, a community-accessible data visualization tool with close to 200 unique data variables on a wide-ranging set of topics for Boone, Kenton, and Campbell counties. We launched the atlas to help assess the economic, health, and education outcomes of our region. BE NKY is focusing on four major topics: population/labor force growth, early childhood development/third grade reading, housing affordability, and access to transportation.
Working with our advisory committee, comprised of data users and local companies and organizations, we arrived at these topics through discussion with community stakeholders, soliciting feedback at our Annual Forum in November 2022, and leveraging insights found in the Northern Kentucky Atlas.
The following provides a brief overview of the focus topics:
Growing Population/labor force
Like many communities across the U.S., Northern Kentucky is feeling the effects of a labor shortage, brought about in part by an aging population and declining birth rate. Together, these factors put the region’s economy at risk of stalling. Northern Kentucky needs strategies to bring more people into the workforce, train and upskill our existing workforce, and increase attraction and retention rates through migration.
Improving Early Childhood Development/Third grade reading levels
A 2010 study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that students who are not reading proficiently by third grade are four times less likely to graduate from high school by age 19. In order to improve the number of third graders who are reading proficiently, it is important that we direct community resources to early childhood development, address barriers to accessing quality and affordable preschools, and promote strategies that achieve kindergarten readiness.
Addressing Housing Affordability
Nearly 23 percent of households in Northern Kentucky are considered housing-cost burdened, according to data from the latest American Community Survey (ACS). To help assess the current housing landscape, the Northern Kentucky Area Development District has engaged a third-party consultant, Stantec, to produce a study that examines the state of housing availability in Northern Kentucky, including existing gaps in the housing product.
Increasing Access to Transportation
Northern Kentucky is a vehicle-dominated region, with 97.5 vehicles owned per 100 adult residents. At the same time, however, 5.8 percent of households do not have access to a personal vehicle, according to the ACS data found in the Atlas. Local transportation leaders and regional partners, such as the Transit Authority of Northern Kentucky and the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, are striving to make data-informed decisions around improving regional accessibility for Northern Kentucky residents, and particularly vulnerable segments of the community.
Moving Forward
As we progress with this initiative, we are seeking to partner with organizations to leverage our resources and collective expertise to enhance the community’s understanding of these topics and the challenges they can present. In the process, our goal is to highlight work being done by these organizations, and particularly the programs and strategies already in place. We will dig deeper into each of these topics in upcoming articles. With the Northern Kentucky Atlas serving as a tool, we will utilize data to foster community discussion on how to best tackle these challenges.
David McAleese is Research Director at BE NKY Growth Partnership. Through BE NKY’s Build + Elevate NKY campaign, McAleese leads the “Data-Informed Community Decision-Making” initiative, one of four developed by BE NKY to continue work toward increased community prosperity.
