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Making the greatest place: 2040 Growth Concept

Planning and stewardship  ›  Regional vision and policy  ›  Making the greatest place

This region is admired across the nation for its innovative approach to planning for the future. Our enviable quality of life can be attributed in no small measure to our stubborn belief in the importance of thinking ahead.

One example of this foresight was the Metro Council’s adoption of the 2040 Growth Concept, a long-range plan designed with the participation of thousands of Oregonians in the 1990s. This innovative blueprint for the future, intended to guide growth and development for the next 50 years, is based on a set of shared values that continue to resonate throughout the region: thriving neighborhoods and communities, abundant economic opportunity, clean air and water, protecting streams and rivers, preserving farms and forestland, access to nature, and a sense of place. These are the reasons people love to live here.

A vision for the future

Policies in the region’s long-range plan encourage:

• safe and stable neighborhoods for families
• compact development, which uses both land and money more efficiently
• a healthy economy that generates jobs and business opportunities
• protection of farms, forests, rivers, streams and natural areas
• a balanced transportation system to move people and goods
• housing for people of all incomes in every community.

Challenge and opportunity

Since the adoption of the long-range plan in 1995, the region’s population has increased by 200,000 residents. More people, especially young adults, are moving to the region because it is a great place to live, work and play. This rapid growth brings jobs and opportunity, but it also creates new challenges. Our challenge is to serve as good stewards of the region and to build a foundation for fair, responsible growth.

We’re growing faster than anyone expected. New forecasts show that within the next 25 years, about a million more people will live in the five-county Portland metropolitan region. In addition, time has exposed some of the shortcomings in the implementation of the region’s long-range plan, as well as tensions and trade-offs between different objectives. We must make difficult choices if we want our neighborhoods and communities to continue to thrive.

Updating the region's long-range plan

During the next two years, the Metro Council will be working closely with individuals and groups throughout the region to take actions that will shape our future, including:

• deciding which areas should be designated as urban and rural reserves
• stimulating innovative development of housing and jobs in regional and town centers, transit corridors, and new communities
• further reforming the growth management process so we can achieve our aspirations for developing great communities.

The Metro Council is moving forward on four tracks:

Investments

New ideas and new resources are needed to manage expected population and job growth in a way that protects our quality of life. In addition to maintaining our existing public facilities and services, we need to do a better job of turning our long-range plans into vibrant and well-designed main streets, downtowns, corridors, and employment/industrial areas, both in our existing communities and in new urban areas at the region’s edge. Strategic public expenditures can stimulate the private investments needed to build complete and dynamic communities.

Urban and rural reserves

Legislation passed in 2007 offers our fast-growing region new tools that will allow us to efficiently accommodate future residents while also preserving farmland, forest land, and natural resources over the long term. Regional partners will be working together to decide what lands should and should not be urbanized in the coming decades. This should provide both more flexibility and more predictability to the growth management process and reduce the level of controversy associated with urban growth boundary expansion decisions.

Performance-based growth management

Before we bring land from urban reserves into the urban growth boundary, we should demonstrate that we’re effectively implementing our long-range plans for development within the existing boundary. We’ll work with our partners to develop criteria to ensure that our decisions support the region’s goals and expectations for high-quality development.

Transportation

ODOT, TriMet, the Port of Portland, and the cities and counties of the region are working with Metro to update the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP) and to implement a long-range transportation strategy that will keep our economy strong and our communities livable.

Need assistance?

Metro land-use planning
503-797-1562
2040@oregonmetro.gov 

Files and related materials

Download a reader-friendly description of the 2040 Growth Concept and a PDF of the concept map.

Files that are downloadable from this page

• The Nature of 2040 - The region's 50-year strategy for managing growth 784K Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published June 1, 2000
• 2040 Growth Concept map 6.7M Adobe Acrobat PDF | Published January 9, 2006

discover in this section

2040 Growth Concept at a glance

Read about the ten urban design types identified in the 2040 Growth Concept as the "building blocks" of the regional strategy for managing growth.

Urban and rural reserves

Metro and Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties are leading a regional effort to designate urban and rural reserves to accommodate future growth and protect valuable farmland, forest land and natural areas that define the character of this region.

Regional Infrastructure Analysis

As the region’s population grows, one of the challenges to successful implementation of the 2040 Growth Concept is the development and maintenance of critical infrastructure necessary to build and enhance great communities.

Urban growth boundary

Metro manages the region's urban growth boundary which separates urban land from rural land.

Regional Framework Plan

Learn about the regional framework plan that unites all of Metro's adopted land-use planning policies and requirements.

Urban Growth Management Functional Plan

The functional plan provides tools that help meet goals in the 2040 Growth Concept, Metro's long-range growth management plan.

Shape of the Region study

Find out more information about a comprehensive study, completed in 2006, identifying how the agricultural economy, natural areas and urban communities all contribute value to this region.

Public opinion research on population growth and land use

As part of the Metro Council's effort to understand the underlying values and beliefs of the people in the region, Metro commissioned extensive public opinion research.