Representatives from Nassau, Duval, Baker, Clay, Flagler, St. Johns and Putnam counties are working together through the The Northeast Florida Regional Council. The council’s purpose is to brainstorm changes for the community regionally without the borders of county lines. On May 21 a visioning process, Vision 2060, will begin. For the first time all 7 counties will be working together to plan for the future of a region vs. a county.

Vision 2060 will project what the region may look like in the year 2060 and how we can properly plan for its growth. Brian D. Teeple, the Regional Council’s chief executive officer, spoke to the News Leader in a recent article about what they expect:

“The whole crux of this is to look at  what the region might look like in the year 2060, when we’ve added 1.6 million people and 650,000 jobs…We chose 1.6 million by the year 2060 as very a conservative estimate. I personally believe the number will be way north of that. What we are asking people to do is look at where in the region they want those people and jobs to be.”

The visioning process starts on what is known as “Game Day”.  Leaders from all around the community will put their noggins together and play with Legos. Out of the 300 people selected, 100 will be from the government, 100 from non-profit and 100 from the business community. They will split into groups of 10 from each division and place Legos on a map of the region following a set of guiding principles that each group comes up with.

Residents of the seven counties have a chance to put in their two cents before “Game Day”. On March 23 there will be seven simultaneous town hall meetings, one in each county. Residents can also take their voice online to www.realitycheckfirstcoast.com and take an online survey.

To read more from the News Leader click here.