How do you know whether a neighborhood's growth and change has matched projects and whether it's synching with the neighborhood plans developed by residents a decade ago? You don't unless you ask.

As part of the work updating Seattle's 38 neighborhood plans, the Seattle Planning Commission and the Neighborhood Plan Advisory Committee are holding a series of open houses this (and last) month to pose a series of questions to attendees about how their neighborhoods have changed and what people would like to see in the future.

The goal is to produce a mini "almanac" by the end of the this year for each planning area showing demographic, housing, open space, transportation infrastructure and other changes over the past 10 years. These status reports are intended to help neighborhoods decide if their plan needs updating or not.

A few of the neighborhood open houses have already occurred, but some will take place later this month (West Seattle's meeting is tonight, July 28, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Delridge Community Center Gym, 4501 Delridge Way S.W.). If you don't have the opportunity to attend the open houses, you can also review your neighborhood's status report and provide feedback on-line here. Check it out, maybe pass it along to neighbors.

Looking ahead, the Department of Planning and Development will incorporate the feedback they've heard from the community in these meetings and from the on-line "virtual" town meeting, make changes to the status reports, and then report back to the neighborhoods later this year for a final sign-off to ensure the status reports are indeed reflections of what neighbors experience every day.

This is a great opportunity to look around us and see what's transpired in 10 years that may have no relation to neighborhood plans (the economy is powerful motivator) or which can be attributed directly to the plans (new libraries, sidewalks and parks). We need to look around and understand where we are now if we are to know how the plans