The Long Island Index

Location: Long Island, NY

Website: www.longislandindex.org

The Long Island Index created the Build a Better Burb competition and maintains the Build a Better Burb website. The Index is a project of the Rauch Foundation, a Long Island-based family foundation established in 1961.

The Foundation acts as the convener of the Long Island Index Advisory Committee and the financial underwriter of the Index.

In 2011, the Long Island Press described the Index as “the most definitive status report on the quality of Long Island life.

Long Island is one region with a shared history, geography, beaches, aquifers, and a shared future. But from day- to-day, our differences seem more apparent than our similarities. We are 2 counties, 2 cities, 13 towns, 95 incorporated villages, 37 legislative districts. We have 110 library districts, 125 school districts and 187 fire districts plus hundreds of other special districts. Sometimes it is easier to see these as many fragments rather than our shared whole.

We created The Long Island Index to focus on our region as a whole – those things that unite us, issues that can only be understood by looking at the big picture. Whether it is how our economy is changing, the types of jobs we are creating, how well our schools are doing to educate all students, our political structure, the health of our natural environment, or types of housing we’re providing, the Index explores all these issues and more by analyzing how each plays out across our 1,198 square miles.