Our Land, Our Streets, Our Economy

By Ivan Paz, Community Organizer/Supporter of the DRIVE Fresno Opportunity Corridors  

I’ve spent nearly 10 years of my professional life thinking about land and transportation: how we use it, how we plan for it, and how those decisions shape people’s lives. Working with Better Blackstone, I saw firsthand how zoning maps, streetscapes, public infrastructure, and municipal planning meetings — often the kinds of things most people never think about — determine whether neighborhoods thrive or wither and the health of our environment.  

State, city, and local land use policies and development decisions influence the location, the success of businesses, and economic conditions, along with the type of housing and transportation systems, which all impact the overall health and quality of life of Fresno's residents. Every community issue, negative or positive, is somehow shaped and determined by the politics of land and transportation systems through the ways in which land is governed, planned out, and/or controlled.   

In Fresno, the complexities of urban planning, zoning, and other land use and transportation development processes often serve as barriers to elevating community priorities, resident engagement, and more equitable development. Existing land use and public policy systems in Fresno tend to favor those with the expertise, resources, and power, such as developers! As a result, positive economic outcomes are usually experienced by those who have leveraged land use processes for their own development interests, which has not been the typical experience of the broader Fresno community.  

For 70 years, Fresno’s growth pattern, like that of many American cities, has followed a predictable script: we sprawl outward. New subdivisions and shopping centers spring up on the edges while older neighborhoods — the ones closest to jobs, schools, and transit — are left without the public resources and facilities they need to thrive. That model has hollowed out our urban core and pulled much needed investment away from the very communities that could anchor a stronger, more inclusive economy.  

If we want a different future, we have to make different choices. And right now, Blackstone Avenue is one of the most important places to start.  

Blackstone is one of Fresno’s great contradictions. You feel it as you drive along – it is the geographic heart of the city, the Spine of Fresno, lined with schools, small businesses, transit stops, and increasingly failing shopping centers, blight, street crime, and the unhoused. Decades of disinvestment and car-centric planning have left it barren of safe places and positive pedestrian activity. Much of the corridor is surface parking, vacant lots, and too few places where people want to be: to walk, live, or meet up.  

Through the Opportunity Corridors Initiative and the work of partners across the city, we’re beginning to show what’s possible: streets designed for people, not just cars; buildings that bring homes and jobs closer together; and public spaces that invite activity and connection. We could add as many as 2,000 units of housing per mile along Blackstone if we properly incentivize it — and in doing so, revitalize building, parcels and public spaces, bring new residents’ eyes on the street, and turn this corridor into a model for how Fresno grows inward: with density, vitality, and opportunity.  

Land use isn’t just about planning and zoning. The physical shape of a city determines the shape of its economy. When we continue to build farther out, we stretch public services thin, make transportation more expensive, and isolate people from jobs and opportunities. When we invest in existing neighborhoods — with housing, transit, sidewalks, and infrastructure — we create the conditions for small businesses to grow, for workers to reach employment, and for families to build wealth close to where they live. It’s also about how we spend public dollars. Cities spend millions, often billions, on planning and new infrastructure and development. Every budget line, every zoning change, every public works project is a statement about whose future we’re investing in. These decisions have disproportionately harmed city residents and small businesses in neglected parts of central and south Fresno and in city neighborhoods west of Freeway 99, areas with the most urban decay and underinvested public facilities on an absolute and relative basis to new suburbs created to the north and east.   

A thriving, inclusive economy doesn’t happen by accident. It’s through deliberate decisions about where we place those investments. That’s why land use and economic development must be part of the same conversation. And it’s why the billions of dollars Fresno is poised to spend in the coming decades must go toward strengthening neglected neighborhoods, not repeating the old patterns that created inequity in the first place.  

One of the most hopeful shifts I’ve seen in recent years is how much more residents now understand and care about land use. More people are showing up to speak about infill, zoning, streetscapes, and urban form. They understand that these issues shape everything from housing affordability to neighborhood safety to public health.  

We also need power, the kind that comes from knowledge and participation. That’s why we launched the Community Land Use Academy, which helps residents learn how planning decisions are made, how to engage with city processes, and even how to serve on planning commissions. It’s about giving people the tools to shape their own communities. To date, we enrolled more than 100 residents through the Academy and engaged several hundreds more in Better Blackstone and related efforts. When people understand how much time, money, and influence go into urban planning, they realize something important: they can change it. And that realization is one of the most powerful tools we have.  

We saw that power on full display recently when hundreds of Fresno residents packed City Hall to weigh in on the Southeast Development Area (SEDA) — a massive proposal for new housing and mixed-use development at the city’s edge. The 160 community members that showed up on November 19, did not just oppose the SEDA plan, but demanded a different vision for Fresno’s growth — one that invests in existing neighborhoods before pushing the city’s boundaries ever outward.  

The conversations around SEDA, the work on Blackstone, and the rise of grassroots leadership all point in the same direction: communities are what we decide they will be. We can continue down the same path — one of sprawl and disinvestment — or we can choose a future built from the inside out, where land use decisions fuel a thriving, inclusive economy for everyone.  

Blackstone and anti-SEDA can be the model. The Land Use Academy can be the training ground. And the growing civic movement around planning, development, and so many areas within the DRIVE coalition can be the force that reshapes Fresno, not just physically and economically, but with a refreshed and resilient spirit of community learning and cooperation for the future.