Southeastern Wisconsin consists of 1,721,466 acres of land – nearly one acre per

citizen. Over the past several decades, as housing developments have replaced farms,

many people assume that urban sprawl has become a fact of life in our region. But

the reality is quite different: In truth, 73% of our region’s acreage remains

undeveloped, mostly in the form of farms, wetlands, woods, lakes, and other open

land. What will we do with a million undeveloped acres in the years and decades

ahead? Will we balance environmental preservation with economic development?

How many acres will we commit to transportation infrastructure, and how many to

parks and cultural amenities? Will we have an action plan to develop our region, or

will we mostly depend on the market forces? How we answer these and other

questions will define the quality of life and the competitiveness of a region that is still

very much a work in progress.