Not-so-dry statistics would give more direction to Valley economy.

NEVER has data caused so much excitement. The proposal by the Valley Industry and Commerce Association pushing the creation of a San Fernando Valley Statistical District is gaining a lot of support within the business community--some people are downright enthused about the plan.

And rightly so. From an economic and social standpoint, creating the district would be a huge step for the Valley, sort of a mild second secession movement more or less--hopefully without the politics. And this time around, you can't say people are going to be hurt by this. There are no negative aspects to it at all.

Specifically, creation of a Valley district, which VICA announced recently it is pushing for, would require the U.S. Census Bureau to separately account for Valley economic, social and demographic information. Right now, the entire city of L.A. is lumped together from the Valley to the sea. (And we know that many times we don't have anything in common with our beach friends.)

That means that when any Valley organization or business is preparing particular grant applications, devising strategies based on data, preparing performance reports or doing anything that surveys and analyzes our region it must go through many extra steps to pull that information from the broader city and county data. That's costly and certainly time consuming.

We've got 1.7 million people here in a region geographically separated from the rest of Los Angeles. Certainly reasons enough on their own for Census bureaucrats to create a separate statistical district.

Or if that's not enough, talk to Bob Scott, VICA vice chairman and chair for governance, who is heading up the project for the organization. He's got pages of comments from Valley businesspeople in support of the designation. Many detail how creation of the district would help our area's economy.

Educators say having our own Valley stats will help them do more accurate educational planning. Demographic information will be more accurate.

Police officials say that it will help them more accurately deploy resources.

Community redevelopment officials want it because it will give a clearer picture of me Valley's economy that can be given to investors. Transit officials will also get a better picture to fix our horrible problems in that area.

And, of course, many businesspeople are citing more accurate marketing of their products as the reason they would want to see the Valley statistical designation.

There are few actions that could be taken that would more broadly help the Valley economy than creating this designation. It will help everybody, including us here at the paper. Valley-centric data would make for far more focused stories on our economy.

Business Journal Editor Jason Schaff can be reached at 818-316-3125 or [e-mail].