'Envision Utah' a National Model for Long-Range Planning

Peter Harkness provides an in-depth look at the Envision Utah method of planning for growth in a state with a rich and varied history of planning—and planning well.

First, Harkness describes Envision Utah's unique model:

"Envision Utah isn’t regional. It’s a statewide enterprise. It isn’t exactly a program, either; it’s more of a process. And it’s not a government effort, though the state and most local governments are involved. The best way to describe it is as a loosely defined, public-private-nonprofit partnership that includes most every stakeholder imaginable: local public officials, planning professionals, developers, conservationists, business and community leaders, and just about anyone else who shows an interest and a willingness to collaborate for a common purpose. Participation is entirely voluntary."

Then, Harkness succeeds the programs tangible results in growth management, some of which are listed here:

• "Despite a statewide population increase of nearly 30 percent since the 2000 Census, water consumption has fallen by more than a quarter..."
• "Emissions of inventoried air pollutants has dropped by almost half, and the state is currently working toward an even more aggressive clean air campaign."
• "Projections made in 1998, before Envision Utah got started, assumed that an additional 300 square miles of rural land would be lost to development by now. Thanks to changing land use patterns that Envision Utah has helped to promote, the actual total has been less than half that amount."

The reasons why those results have been achieved, according to the article, is a list of smart growth best practices that might seem politically impossibel in many other parts of the country.

Harkness claims, however, that Envision Utah's most impressive success has been devoted to the state's transportation system:

• "Vehicle miles traveled have actually fallen back to what they were in the late 1990s…."
• "Utah now has more transit infrastructure than many larger states, with a total of 70 stations for its rail and light rail systems."

As an example of the master planned communities that have grown out of the Envision Utah process, Harkness cites the example of Daybreak, located southeast of Salt Lake City, which received the platinum award for suburban smart growth from the National Association of Home Builders in 2011. The article also includes an illustration of the Envision Utah process and a lot more about how the Envision Utah process was launched, the planning and political context of the state, and other programs that have followed its model.