Draft Vision for Dallas Comprehensive Plan Under Review

The City of Dallas is in the process of developing its first comprehensive plan. Forward
Dallas! is an effort to involve residents in establishing a vision of future growth for the
city that will serve as the goal for the comprehensive plan. Using interactive mapping
exercises and computer technology, Dallas Citizens developed alternative growth
scenarios.
The community involvement process has taken ten months to date. It is expected to
increase community understanding of the tradeoffs between different growth scenarios
and, thereby, to build community support for strategies to sustain a healthy and
prosperous city over the long term.
Forward Dallas! has involved the community in:

• Establishing guiding principles to serve as guideposts for the comprehensive plan.
• Developing ideas at community workshops about how to improve specific
  geographic areas.
• Creating maps at citywide workshops to illustrate what future development could
  look like for the city as a whole.

With this base of community input, three scenarios of future growth were created as a
way to compare outcomes and learn about the factors that shape the future.

• Trend Scenario: A picture of what the future of Dallas could look like if there is
  no change in today’s development policies (most new households in northern
  Dallas, most new jobs in existing job centers).
• Turbo charged Growth Scenario: A picture of a rapidly growing economy with a
  major increase in the number of people who want to live within the city of Dallas
  (twice the number of jobs and five times the number of households in city limits).
• Vision Scenario: A picture of how the public said it wanted development of jobs
  and housing to occur (an increase in households inside the city limits and most
  new jobs in existing job centers).

Differences between the growth scenarios were measured (see below). Public opinion on
tradeoffs between the scenarios is being collected through surveys. The draft vision and
strategies are currently under review.
The City Council is expected to approve the vision and strategies as a means for guiding
choices about future investments.