Fresno Opportunity Corridors

The Fresno Opportunity Corridors is an 11-mile configuration of arterial streets with mixed-use zoning, that elevates Fresno’s General Plan policies for transit supportive urban development. Fully implemented, this transportation and land use network can link downtown, southwest, southeast and central Fresno neighborhoods and districts in coordinated creative urban place-making focused on the production of affordable housing, economic development and environmental quality.

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Blackstone Avenue is a key Fresno Opportunity Corridors segment where the city is investing in new housing, transportation, and infrastructure. It’s one of the few places in Fresno where we can still add density, bring back activity, and build the kind of mixed-use neighborhoods that support a stronger local economy. For decades, this area has been and continues to be shaped by sprawl and disinvestment. Communities along Blackstone, made up of working-class families, immigrants, and people of color, were bypassed as development pushed outward to the edges of the city. Planning decisions prioritized new growth over reinvestment, leaving central neighborhoods behind. The result is a city where many residents are disconnected from opportunity. Fresno’s economy as a whole has suffered.

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Fresno’s Opportunity Corridors is a chance to change course. By focusing on infill development, updated streetscapes, and better transit connections, we’re working to turn underutilized land into thriving, walkable communities. Through the Community Land Use Academy, residents are learning how land use, zoning, and planning decisions are made, many for the first time. The academy encourages participation on planning commissions, neighborhood boards, and in public processes. Civic awareness is growing: people are connecting the dots between infrastructure budgets, ballot measures like Measure C, and the physical and economic realities of their neighborhoods.

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Each year, Fresno spends millions of dollars in new infrastructure and development. The question is: as a community do we continue to repeat the patterns of the past, or do we choose a new direction? The way we plan and build affects public health, safety, and economic opportunity. The Fresno Opportunity Corridors is about giving local residents a voice in how their neighborhoods grow, while making sure new investment benefits the communities that have been left out in the past.  An example of vibrant corridor vision for Fresno that includes meaningful community engagement is the recently completed 'Better Blackstone Public Realm Action Plan' designed by Cal Poly SLO and Fresno City College architecture students.