Process

A Greater Madison Vision is an initiative guided by leaders from business, government and community organizations. The Capital Area Regional Planning Commission (CARPC) leads the project and provides support to the initiative.

In 2016 the project focused on capacity building, assembling a diverse steering committee, investigating and analyzing methods to gather meaningful input from the public on their priorities for a growing region. Preliminary research produced a regional baseline assessment .

In the second year we focused on direct outreach, education and engagement with organizations and communities, sharing information and gathering feedback on the key concerns people had about the impact of future growth on the region.

By 2018 the group began promoting the need for broad public input and finalized content for an innovative, online survey which launched in September 2018 and stayed live for two months. The ten-minute survey asked Dane County residents and visitors to rank their priorities for growth.

This year the project is focused on sharing the survey results and analyzing the public’s priorities as we begin to prepare the regional vision and plan which will guide us for the next 25 years.

The Survey

In the fall of 2018, the A Greater Madison Vision survey asked people to rank the importance of four types of change expected to occur with growth. We named these areas of change “population,” “society,” “environment,” and “technology.” The survey then presented four alternative scenarios for the Greater Madison region’s growth, and allowed survey takers to rank regional strategies in order of priority, and select a preferred growth scenario. Survey takers were provided the opportunity to comment on their preferences and concerns for the future, and asked to provide anonymous demographic and location information about themselves.

Nearly 9,200 people completed the survey from September through November, and just over 2,100 people submitted comments. Staff from the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission analyzed survey data. Staff tallied priority rankings for each of the 16 strategies and number of votes for each growth alternative. The tallies were broken down by demographic and geographic categories, and then staff compared demographics and locations of survey takers to those of the general population. Finally, staff categorized , then tallied and characterized each of the over 200 comments. For more in-depth findings, including an analysis and samples of participants’ comments, please read our full report.