One of the first things I would recommend is to find out what local communities think.
For example, what are the needs on the ground? How are the existing institutions meeting the needs? What do they need in order to meet the needs on the ground? What institutions would these communities like to have nearby?
We also have to figure out just how strong the institutions are. Look at the University of Sudbury, which is struggling to establish itself, as you know. How do they get stronger? To figure that out, we need to look at the communities that are served by those institutions.
In terms of indicators, those are all things I would look at.