Process Timeline

MetroCommon will include recommendations, data, analysis, explanatory materials, and decision-making tools to promote and enable implementation. It will be developed in five phases:

Vision & Groundwork

Challenges & Opportunities

Policies &
Best Practices

Scenario Planning

Plan Assembly and Release

Phase 1:
Vision & Groundwork

Complete: September 2018 - April 2019

We asked local and state leaders, residents, and commonly underrepresented groups about the future they want for Greater Boston. We used that input and the common threads found in the local plans of forty of the region’s cities and towns to identify shared goals for the region’s future.

See the goals here.

Phase 2:

Challenges & Opportunities

What is standing in the way of achieving our goals? What trends are emerging?

Current Phase

In this phase, we’re identifying the region’s most significant challenges and opportunities. We will test our understanding of these issues with the public, highlighting where solutions are needed.

Phase 3:

Policies & Best Practices

​What policies and actions can we target to overcome the barriers and take advantage of the opportunities identified in the previous phase? We will uncover and debate best practices and policy initiatives from across the country and world and prioritize a list of ideas to model in the next phase.

What can we do that will work?​

Phase 4:

Scenario Planning

​In this phase, we will explore a number of potential different futures. We will assess the impacts and effectiveness of various policy actions in the context of these different future trends.

How can we succeed in an uncertain future?​

Phase 5:

Tradeoffs & Recommendation

During this phase, we will use the results from scenario planning to identify and prioritize the plan recommendations that provide the best opportunities to reach our region’s goals.

What policies should we adopt?

Plan Assembly and Release