WFRC NEWSLETTER SPECIAL EDITION: 
Updated Wasatch Choice Centers - A Team Effort!
(our September Map of the Month)
Utah is growing… and we have a plan. The Wasatch Choice Vision is our region’s shared vision for transportation investments, development patterns, and economic opportunities. And we’ve got some exciting news to share: the Vision map has been refreshed to reflect our communities' latest expectations for the future, for coordinating and providing transportation choices, housing options, preserving open space, and economic opportunities.
This summer, WFRC coordinated with cities and counties across the region to update center boundaries, names, types, and their expected timing. Here is a link to the updated Wasatch Choice interactive map. If you'd like to see how the centers have changed, the centers boundary comparison map provides a convenient ‘before’ and ‘after’ look. These maps allow you to zoom in and out to see details.
About the Wasatch Choice centers
By locating homes, jobs, and transportation - especially transit - in coordination with one another, we can provide real choices for residents to meet their housing, neighborhood, and community preferences. The Wasatch Choice Vision embodies this coordinated approach. In Wasatch Choice, communities have identified centers as effective places to absorb growth.

What is a center?
A gathering place at the heart of a community that usually:
  • Offers a mix of shopping, homes, and jobs based on market demands.
  • Is walkable and bikeable along comfortable streets and pathways.
  • Provides choices about how to get around, what to live in, and what to visit.

What are the benefits of “centered” growth?
  • Helps address housing demands while preserving rural and single-family neighborhoods: Centers take growth pressure off of rural areas and single-family neighborhoods, while helping to address housing availability and affordability.
  • Saves time and money: By locating homes and jobs near each other and with transit, centers reduce the time, distance, and money it takes for people to reach their destinations.
  • Improves health: People that work and/or live in centers walk and bike more and tend to be healthier.
  • Enhances economic opportunity: Centered growth helps businesses reach more customers and employees to have a bigger selection of jobs within a typical commute.
  • Cleaner air: More transit, walk, bike, and shorter commutes means less pollution in the air.
  • Reduces water use: Mixed-used and multifamily housing development have lower per-capita water consumption.
  • Taxpayer friendly: Centers naturally have higher economic activity and tax revenue per mile, and capitalize on existing infrastructure, which can help keep rates lower.

The Wasatch Choice Vision
The Wasatch Choice Vision reflects the collaboration of many public and private sector partners in our Region, including WFRC and MAG, UDOT and UTA, cities and counties, and more.  The Wasatch Choice Vision offers simple, yet powerful strategies for how housing and commercial spaces, the transportation system, economic development, and open spaces can best work together to sustain our excellent quality of life as our urban area continues to grow.