Twin Cities Metropolitan Council adopts 'Imagine 2050' regional development guide

The Metropolitan Council has adopted a comprehensive regional plan, Imagine 2050,  guiding growth and development across the Twin Cities metropolitan region over the next three decades.
 
The plan addresses critical areas including housing accessibility, land use, transportation infrastructure, water resource management, and parks development.
 
"Today, the Twin Cities region leads the nation in many quality-of-life areas," said Metropolitan Council Chair Charlie Zelle. "Long-term planning has helped us grow and develop thoughtfully by addressing key challenges. As a region, we've built one of the nation's best parks systems, our wastewater treatment system has cleaned up polluted waterways, and we have managed to weather many of the last half century's economic downturns better than most of the nation. You don't get results like that without a plan."
 
The adoption of Imagine 2050 marks a milestone in the region's planning history, which began in 1967 when the Minnesota Legislature created the Met Council in response to  regional challenges including polluted lakes and streams, a disintegrating privately owned bus system, and rapid, unorderly growth threatening vital natural areas.
 
Key focus areas of Imagine 2050:
• Land Use and Development: Foundational policies for how the region manages growth and development designed to support community connections, preserve natural resources, and increase climate resilience while ensuring access to transportation and equitable development and economic well-being.
• Water Resource Management: Stewardship to ensure future generations have clean water that is plentiful, high-quality, affordable, and accessible to support a healthy environment, public health, and a thriving economic region, paired with sustainable investments in regional water infrastructure.
• Transportation: Planning a forward-thinking transportation system that connects people, communities, and commerce, and provides choices in reaching places safely and efficiently, through partnerships with counties, cities, and townships.
• Housing Accessibility: Progressive policies aimed at expanding housing choices, ownership options, and cultural connections while actively addressing historical inequities, environmental justice, and ongoing challenges in housing access.
• Parks and Recreation: Enhanced partnerships with regional park agencies to preserve and protect what we have by investing in natural spaces and recreational facilities to increase climate resilience and meet future needs of the region.
The development of Imagine 2050 represents an unprecedented level of community engagement. "While the Met Council is adopting this plan, we didn't come up with it on our own," Zelle explained. "For the last four years, we've been talking to locally elected officials, nonprofits, neighborhood organizations, and people in our communities about the kind of future they want to build. This is a plan based on thousands of conversations."
 
Implementation of the plan will begin immediately, with all 181 cities and townships and seven counties in the metro region developing aligned 10-year comprehensive plans. "This is the really exciting part," said Zelle. "Imagine 2050 lays out a shared vision and goals, but it is the individual cities and counties that make those dreams a reality."
 
For more information about Imagine 2050 and its implementation, visit Imagine 2050 - Metropolitan Council.