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Vital signs, like heart rate, temperature, and weight, tell us what is going in our body. VITAL CONDITIONS tell us what is going on in our community and in the world around us. Vital conditions are properties of places and institutions that we all need all the time to reach our full potential, like food, humane housing, access to meaningful work and wealth and a sense of belonging.
They are described below.
BASIC NEEDS FOR HEALTH & SAFETY
This VC focuses on what we need to live healthy lives, what makes a community safe and free from violence, crime, and hazards, and how to build and support communities.
BELONGING & CIVIC MUSCLE
This VC focuses on fulfilling relationships, the social support people need to thrive, encouraging people to be part of a community and contribute to its vibrancy.
THRIVING NATURAL WORLD
This VC focuses on creating a clean, healthy environment, free of environmental hazards & resilient to future changes & threats–one that fulfills our needs to connect with nature.
HUMANE HOUSING
This VC focuses on stable, safe places to live, including diverse, vibrant communities capable of providing what we need to live full, productive lives.
LIFELONG LEARNING
This VC focuses on good education, which ensures all young people, regardless of background or ability, are set up for success, and have the opportunities to reach their full potential.
MEANINGFUL WORK & WEALTH
This VC focuses on personal, family, and community wealth that provides the means for healthy, secure lives across the lifespan via good-paying, fulfilling jobs and careers.
RELIABLE TRANSPORTATION
This VC focuses on compact, walkable, accessible communities, in which mobility is ensured no matter a person’s means, mode or ability, streets are safe, and transportation systems are sustainable.
When vital conditions are widely shared and assured for everyone, more people thrive. Those same conditions safeguard the entire community from avoidable adversity and urgent needs. Over time, a thriving spiral could take hold as vital conditions expand and adversity declines for more and more people. If we neglect–or deny–any vital condition for any one part of our society, serious adversity can accumulate, like illness, injury, poverty, addiction, homelessness, loneliness, crime, incarceration, pollution, and natural disasters. If left unchecked, entrenched adversity can spark a suffering spiral that spreads across neighborhoods and eclipses opportunities for future generations for everyone.
VITAL CONDITIONS
How is our well-being affected by the legacies of policy and investment choices made by prior leaders? What are we doing now to shape the vital conditions that we all depend on to reach our full potential? What legacies will our choices leave to the next generation?