• Initiative 1.1: Encourage infill and redevelopment through the use of tax credits and other direct and indirect public incentives.  
• Initiative 1.2: Fix it first: continue to privilege projects that maintain the existing road network in a state of good repair, rather than building additional capacity. 
• Initiative 1.3: Improve the ability of municipalities and townships to analyze the long-term impacts of new development and better manage their own development.  
• Initiative 1.4: Continue development throughout the region in accordance with local zoning requirements and preferences, but prioritize public subsidies to projects within the region's established communities.  
• Initiative 1.5: Require the users of new sewer extensions that serve previously unsewered areas to pay the full cost of service.  
• Initiative 1.6: Consider instituting a land value tax to replace existing improvement-based property assessment and taxation methods.

2.Develop a robust network of regional job centers connected by multi-modal transportation corridors within and between counties.

• Initiative 2.1: Strengthen regional job centers and the corridors that connect them by diversifying and intensifying land uses and investing in strategic local economic development within them.  
• Initiative 2.2: Use transit oriented development (TOD) to create stronger, more accessible, regional job centers.  
• Initiative 2.3: Implement a tiered approach to local parking requirements.  

• Initiative 3.1: Develop and maintain a regional vacant industrial and commercial properties database and criteria for determining the most appropriate successive use, whether for redevelopment, green infrastructure, food production, or parks, or natural areas.  
• Initiative 3.2: Expedite permitting and remove barriers for adaptive reuse of abandoned buildings and empty lots.  
• Initiative 3.3: Expand and coordinate existing land bank efforts to acquire, assemble, manage, and dispose of vacant properties throughout the region. 
• Initiative 3.4: Identify, evaluate, and where appropriate pursue the reuse of vacant and abandoned industrial sites endowed with significant preexisting infrastructure that could provide unique opportunities for regional economic development. Advocate for a brownfield redevelopment fund and promote these sites through a large-scale marketing campaign. 

• Initiative 4.1: Include mixed-use designations and/or planned unit overlay districts in zoning codes throughout the region.  
• Initiative 4.2: Include traditional small-lot, compact single-family and townhouse residential designations in zoning codes throughout the region.  
• Initiative 4.3: Offer financial incentives to developers that incorporate affordable housing units into their projects and implement inclusionary zoning in markets with widespread affordability gaps.  
• Initiative 4.4: Offer financial literacy and housing education programs for tenants and homeowners. Focus on areas in established communities where investments in housing are underway. 

• Initiative 5.1: Invest in a regional network of bi-directional public transit connections between Northeast Ohio's major job centers.  
• Initiative 5.2: Create a network of high-frequency express and local transit routes connecting the region's job centers. Prioritize infill development in the corridors served by these routes. In the short and medium terms, upgrade high-performing existing bus routes and create new bus routes in designated corridors. In the long term, upgrade the highest-demand routes into commuter rail service.  
• Initiative 5.3: Coordinate the region's transit systems for joint marketing, information technology, and fare media, including information regarding private transit resources such as university/health system shuttles, private bus services, airport transportation, etc.  
• Initiative 5.4: Evaluate the condition of all existing rail trackage and rail crossings to determine what investments would be necessary to bring substandard infrastructure up to standard for freight and passenger service.

• Initiative 6.1: Expand the existing bicycle lane and trail system and connect it to regional transit hubs via on-and-off street facilities.  
• Initiative 6.2: Repair existing sidewalks and crosswalks and add new ones as needed wherever a fixed-route bus service is in operation.  
• Initiative 6.3: Promote "Complete Streets" through regional policy and the identification of local champions.  
• Initiative 6.4: Collaborate with school districts and local communities to further develop safe routes to school, encouraging walking and biking, and site new schools in walkable locations.   

• Initiative 8.1: Support the expansion of community supported agriculture (CSAs), farmer cooperatives, farm-to-school programs, and other existing mechanisms that support sustainable agriculture and enhance food access.  
• Initiative 8.2: Partner with individual landowners, the food processing industry, and local organizations to protect agriculturally valuable land for future generations.  
• Initiative 8.3: Review and amend local ordinances to allow for small- and moderate-scale urban farming on occupied and vacant parcels that are environmentally safe for growing food.  
• Initiative 8.4: Support the work of local food initiatives to share best practices and identify policies of regional significance.

• Initiative 9.1: Study privatization and public-private partnerships as means to fund critical infrastructure projects that cannot be funded solely through public dollars. 
• Initiative 9.2: Utilize joint procurement strategies and the sharing of facilities, staff, and other resources wherever possible to save money on the provision of public services.  
• Initiative 9.3: Identify one or more organizations that will host and maintain the technical resources created by NEOSCC so that they will remain current, accurate, and available for future regional visioning and planning.  
• Initiative 9.4: Align MPO/COG/ODOT transportation model inputs and continue to collaborate, share information, and align policy objectives across the multiple regional planning agencies of Northeast Ohio.  
• Initiative 9.5: Foster greater engagement between MPOs/COGs and organizations/initiatives that address natural resources, parks, sewer, public health, housing, education, private business investment, and economic development.  
• Initiative 9.6: Sustain the momentum of NEOSCC by continuing to convene stakeholders to identify and address regional issues and to advance the region's collaborative capacity.

• Dashboard: a visualization tool that communicates a set of indicators and metrics, against which progress toward the Vibrant NEO 2040 vision will be measured. 
• Tool Kit & Best Practices: implementation tools and techniques to realize the regional preferred vision developed through Vibrant NEO 2040. 
• Policy Recommendations: a framework for analyzing the effects existing policies have on the region and determining what may be needed to create desired change. 
• Pilots: emerging best practices that show promise in moving the region towards the Vibrant NEO 2040 preferred vision.

Vibrant NEO 2040 is a Vision of, by, and for the people of Northeast Ohio. NEOSCC engaged 5600 participants of Northeast Ohioans in developing this Vision for our region's future, including those who we sought out and those who responded to our invitation to participate. Through the workshops, open houses and vision sessions, and ImagineMyNEO we were able to gather subjective, non-statistical input from participants about their values and priorities. The overall participation in the scenario planning events closely mirrored the population of each of the 12 counties. 

To ensure what NEOSCC learned was representative of the public as a whole, we also conducted two statistically valid public-opinion surveys (April 2012 and June 2013) of the priorities and aspirations Northeast Ohioans have for their region. These surveys used representative samples of the region as a whole and had margins of error of +/- 3.5% and +/-4.0%.