In its new comprehensive plan, Raleigh, NC aims to depart from its traditional sprawl and encourage a more sustainable vision of growth.

A draft of Raleigh’s new comprehensive plan: concentrating dense, walkable neighborhoods along public transit corridors.

Raleigh, North Carolina, like many other relatively young cities in the southern USA, is all sprawl. Aside from a few square blocks downtown, occupied by the city’s central business district and surrounding ghetto, Raleigh is more accurately described as an endless collection of suburban developments, tied together by a network of highways and ring roads. During the 16 years that I lived in Raleigh, I never once rode a city bus (aside from the ubiquitous yellow school bus, of course), and seldom visited the city’s downtown of my own free will (I went to school there for several years, but that’s another story).

However, the winds of change in the USA are apparently blowing pretty hard these days, and even Raleigh is beginning to think about changing its development patterns. Last month, a public hearing was held to discuss Raleigh’s new “draft comprehensive plan,” a document which aims to reverse decades of sprawl development and instead encourage mixed-use, high density construction along transit lines.

In an article entitled “Imagine Raleigh Without Sprawl,” indyweek.com describes the discussion about planning for the next 20 years that is happening in NC’s capital city. According to the article, a “stream of visiting experts” has brought a pretty consistent message to town: suburban sprawl is unsustainable, and has no future. In fact, building more and more drivable suburban neighborhoods lowers the quality of life for everyone living in them.

The experts proposed a concept thus far unknown in Raleigh: walkable urbanism. And in order to create it, the planners suggested transforming strip malls and shopping centers into mixed-use apartment buildings, complete with affordable housing units, sidewalk storefronts, public plazas and (gasp) buses.

For the moment, it appears that this discussion is taking place between professional planners. It would certainly be interesting to hear the reactions of Raleigh natives, used to long commutes and hours of mall shopping on weekends, to these ideas. But if a place like Raleigh manages to pull something like this off, it will be an unprecedented feat. Perhaps the first point of reference could be Charlotte, NC, which has apparently managed to pull off a sort of urban renaissance in recent years.

Via indyweek.com. More on Raleigh’s comprehensive plan here.