Building a Regional Voice: Stakeholder Perceptions of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments’ Blueprint Initiative

Regional planning, often touted as the answer to sporadic and unsustainable growth, has historically been weak in the Sacramento region and in California as a whole. Local governments control land use decision-making in their boundaries and regional governments have had little power or intent to disrupt that dynamic. However, a recent initiative by the State Department of Transportation (Caltrans), named the California Regional Blueprint Program, attempts to revise this paradigm. Through a multi-jurisdictional visioning process, the program endeavors to reintroduce regional planning in a way that satisfies local officials, stakeholders and the general public. This paper explores the process and progress of Blueprint planning in the Sacramento region. Interviews with regional staff who led the process and stakeholders who participated in it suggest that the Blueprint planning process helped build trust among these individuals, and progress toward a more sustainable development pattern in the future.