Imagining a joyful, connected, and resilient city

We are at a crossroads. Will we birth a nation that has never been? A nation that is multiracial, multifaith, multicultural, and multigender? Where power is shared, and we strive to protect the dignity of every person? ~Valarie Kaur

This week is my birthday. It has me thinking about how the past influences our present and how our present will influence the future. This theme seems very present in our community this year as we experience our country's shaky foundation, notice the choices that brought us to this point, and consider how to shape a different future.

Thinking about how to fix centuries of bad choices can be overwhelming.

It can help to reframe the chaos of 2025 as an opportunity to imagine how we might do things differently to guide future generations to different outcomes. This is why the 2025-2026 Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) major update feels so important and timely. 

The first BVCP was approved and started guiding our present in 1977, the same year I was born. The BVCP is a high-level vision to guide land use, policy development, and collaboration between the city and Boulder County. You can view the current BVCP here. 

The BVCP shapes how the community will look and feel, how roads and paths will connect it, and how we approach changes to the natural and built environments over long periods. Its focus areas, identified during the updates, guide the city's priorities for the next 5-10 years. Developers and staff reference the BVCP when new projects are denied or approved. It guides the decisions and work of the Council, City Boards and Commissions, and subcommunity plans. 

While present conditions influence the BVCP updates and future implementations, past BVCPs make some outcomes easier or harder. The development unfolding in 2025 was influenced by 48 years of BVCPs. The current major BVCP update, to be completed in 2026, will have the biggest influence on what the city looks and feels like in 2050, 2075, and beyond.

The ongoing major update to the BVCP is the fourth one since I arrived in Boulder 20 years ago. Despite its importance in shaping my and my children's future, this is the first major update I have known about, understood, or paid attention to.

I arrived in Boulder in 2005, as that Council was finishing its 2005 major update. When the next major update was approved in 2010, I was balancing having a toddler and an infant while working and struggling to keep up with increasing housing, childcare, and healthcare costs. In 2017, the year the BVCP and I turned 40, I had just enough space for exercise and church alongside work and family responsibilities. 

I had no idea what the BVCP was, how I could influence it, or why it mattered. In 15 years, no one went out of their way to understand what a working parent with two young children might want or need from the city. Is it surprising that so many families with school-age children have left Boulder for other communities and that our businesses are struggling to find and retain workers? 

Our unique experiences, knowledge, and dreams are invaluable in shaping the city's future. If we're going to create better outcomes for everyone in 10, 20, or 50 years, we all need to participate.

The current update process is designed to be inclusive and accessible. In addition to traditional surveys, open houses, and slide show presentations, community partners are incorporating music, theater, and group discussions. The engagement events are led by people of all ages, incomes, races, ethnicities, and abilities and occur in multiple languages in various places around the community.

The core tenet of democracy is that every person has an equal say in our decisions. We haven't fulfilled that ideal yet, but every time we participate in local decision-making, we get closer.

Learn more about the BVCP update and get involved at ABoulderFuture.org.