Future Vision Development

Metro is requesting proposals for Future Vision Development for the Metro Planning, Development, and Research Department. Metro is updating the 50-year vision for greater Portland, the Future Vision, as called for in Metro’s charter. This work is envisioned to be an approximately 18-month effort that includes research into future trends, broad public and stakeholder engagement, and facilitation of a Future Vision Commission that will guide development of and ultimately recommend a Future Vision to Metro Council for consideration. The extant Future Vision was adopted by Metro Council in 1995 after approximately a year and a half of work by the Future Vision Commission. The vision was largely drafted by this appointed body of 17 elected officials, business leaders and individual volunteers with limited input from the general public of the Portland region. Feedback was sought on the draft vision through several public hearings, written comment and a hotline. While a new Future Vision Commission will be convened to guide this update, Metro intends for their role to be developing a vision that is rooted in stakeholder and public engagement, while considering trends that may impact the region in the next 50 years. The Future Vision is not a regulatory or policy document, nor is it a document only to guide Metro. It is a visionary outlook that will create a foundation of shared regional values to steer Metro and partners’ programs, plans and policies in the future. Metro will create a separate, subsequent implementation plan to identify and prioritize shorter-term (5-10 year) actions that Metro and other actors can take to move the region toward the 50-year vision. This RFP concerns work to create the Future Vision only, though the selected consultant team is expected to document items that may influence the later implementation plan. Of note, this work does not include updating the 2040 Growth Concept which will be an implementation step after the Vision is adopted. However, Metro and other consultants will conduct some quantitative and qualitative analyses of the benefits and impacts of the Growth Concept implementation that can inform development of the Future Vision. Key goals for this work include: Create shared regional values and understanding that inspire and compel action toward the adopted vision, Run a broadly inclusive process that uses a variety of tactics to engage both leaders in the region (government, business, philanthropic, community) and people living in greater Portland who are both regularly and rarely engaged with or interested in government planning processes, Uplift youth voices and perspectives, Identify and consider key trends that will create known and unknown outcomes in greater Portland over the next 50 years.