background.Rmd

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<h1>The Purpose of the Study</h1>

This study examines how the demographic, built environment, and housing market characteristics of small areas in suburban communities changed in the seven-county metropolitan area. It classifies the type of changes these areas experienced between 2000 and 2017 to help inform local planners about the changing needs of various parts of their communities. The study intends to achieve two goals. The first goal is to provide more granular information to planners to help them tailor targeted planning strategies to address the needs of specific parts of their communities. The second one is to identify similar patterns of small area changes across the region to facilitate information sharing and best practices among communities.

<h1>Background</h1>

Our region’s suburbs have been changing for quite a while. The changes these communities experience, however, can vary from one small area to another.1 These areas often differ based on their demographic, built environment, and housing market characteristics. These differences shape the types of change they go through. This project investigates these changes to identify and examine patterns across the suburbs of the seven-county metropolitan area.2

The Metropolitan Council offers technical assistance to communities for the preparation of their comprehensive plans to ensure consistency with regional system plans. The Local Planning Handbook provides information on the region’s physical assets, infrastructure, natural resources, and generalized land use. This study focuses on changes in small areas of suburban communities to offer additional technical assistance to communities within the Council’s jurisdiction.

Planning for different types of small areas requires different approaches to achieving locally identified outcomes. While local planners know about issues in their communities to some extent, many jurisdictions lack the capacity to collect and analyze extensive data to systematically evaluate the needs of various parts of their communities. This project intends to fill this gap by providing a baseline description of the types of changes taking place in small areas of communities.