Over the last year, more than 1,000 citizens from across our seven-county region participated in a series of events to share their vision of Tampa Bay over the next 40 years. Using Legos® to represent new development and ribbons for roads and transit, participants in Reality Check and One Bay workshops built virtual communities based on important priorities. Called Guiding Principles, those priorities include:

• Promoting quality communities to create a sense of place by uniquely clustering higher density mixed-use development organized around transportation corridors
  
  
• Maximizing mobility using multi-modal transportation
  
  
• Preserving natural systems, emphasizing connectivity and sustainable water supplies
  
  
• Balancing jobs and housing for affordable quality of life
  
  
• Attracting higher-paying jobs and strengthening economic development initiatives
  
  
• Preserving farmland and sustaining the role of agriculture

These broad goals have been transformed into scenarios reflecting the priorities identified by citizens participating in those first events. Working with nationally recognized techniques and state-of-the-art software, our scenario builders forecast the strengths and weaknesses associated with how and where the seven million people in our region may live, work and play in the year 2050.

History of Regional Visioning

Over the past 15 years, regional visioning has emerged as a dynamic and important tool for building regional consensus related to growth issues. ULI’s regional visioning program of work assists District Councils and their partners as they plan, build upon, and implement regional exercises and visions. "Reality Check," a one-day participatory visioning exercise created by ULI Los Angeles and inspired by Envision Utah, is an important tool available to District Councils to engage regional leaders in a regional dialogue on growth issues.

Envision Utah – www.envisionutah.org
State of Maryland - www.realitycheckmaryland.org
Los Angeles - http://www.uli-la.org/realitycheck/index.html
Washington, DC – http://washington.uli.org
Vision North Texas - www.visionnorthtexas.org