21st Century (2000–present)

Austin Imagine Austin

2012 · United States · North America · Transit-oriented urbanism and corridor planning · Planned by City of Austin
Imagine Austin Growth Concept Map (2012): activity centers and corridors, job centers, high-capacity transit and the open-space network across Austin and its ETJ
Imagine Austin Growth Concept Map (2012): activity centers and corridors, job centers, high-capacity transit and the open-space network across Austin and its ETJ · © City of Austin — used with credit · City of Austin Planning and Development Review Department, 'Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan' presentation (2012), hosted by the American Planning Association

Core idea

Centers and corridors + Project Connect

Why it matters

Tech boomtown managing growth

Description

Imagine Austin, the comprehensive plan adopted by the City of Austin in 2012 after an extensive public engagement process. The plan organises growth around a network of activity centres and corridors, promoting a compact and connected city in place of continued low-density sprawl, and it anticipated the transit investment later pursued as Project Connect. It covers land use, mobility, environment and economy for a rapidly growing technology-driven city.

Significance

Imagine Austin is a prominent example of a Sunbelt boomtown attempting to redirect growth inward through a centres-and-corridors strategy. Its implementation struggles, most visibly the failure of the CodeNEXT land development code rewrite, have made it a much-discussed case in American debates over the gap between comprehensive plan visions and zoning reform.

What shaped it

Sources

Open it on the interactive timeline →
hub.toekom.st — History of Urbanism · an interactive timeline of 850 planned cities across 6,000 years.