Metric dictionary

Better is up and to the right. Each ward sits where its numbers put it, against the average ward or a standard you set above.

Only measures an alderperson plausibly reaches appear here, each read the way it can be read fairly. What they decide — menu money, attendance, legislation, whether they hand the ward's budget to a resident vote — shows as a level, because the value is the choice. What they only influence — crime, businesses opening and closing — shows as change across the term: nobody should be judged on the ward they inherited, but the direction of travel is a fair question. Health, demographics and the rest of the catalog stay out entirely.

Nothing here is anyone's doing alone. Wards differ in ways no alderperson chose, and plenty of what moves these numbers sits well outside the ward office.