Land Use

To better understand how the land use and transportation decisions we make today will affect the future and to help identify strategies that can remain durable across a range of futures despite changing and disruptive uncertainties, SACOG is undertaking a scenario planning effort, referred to as Pathways, as part of the process for the Blueprint. Pathways will provide the analysis and metrics that will serve as a learning tool for unpacking the many complex and intersecting issues facing the region over the next three decades around housing and land use, transportation management, regional growth, environmental resources, economic development, systemic racial disparities, and climate change and resilience. For more information on the framing for these pathways, click here.  

For each MTP/SCS (Blueprint) update, SACOG prepares a forecast of regional growth in population, employment, and households, and a spatial distribution of growth. The land use component of each MTP/SCS update is a set of assumptions around the amount, location, and nature of growth for the next two-plus decades. The land use and transportation assumptions work together in tandem to maximize benefits and minimize negative impacts across a set of equity, environmental, and economic goals. While many factors are considered, there is not a single mathematical formula or computer program used to create the land use forecast. The analytical process is iterative. Staff evaluate regulatory, market, and policy factors to narrow in on an ambitious but achievable picture of how the region’s land use pattern could evolve.