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Vision 2035 for Greater New Orleans

A regional plan to make Greater New Orleans a better place to live, learn, work, and visit by 2035

Vision 2035 is our long-term roadmap for the region, connecting the big things people feel every day, such as transportation, neighborhoods, culture, and climate, with the way we present ourselves as a destination. The idea's simple: If life improves for the people who live here, the experience will also improve for those who visit.

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What is the Vision 2035 plan?

Vision 2035 LogoVision 2035 is a regional vision and action plan that looks out to the year 2035. It was led by New Orleans & Company with public, private, and nonprofit partners, focusing on aligning growth, tourism, and economic success with quality of life for residents. Instead of a list of projects, it sets the outcomes we want for the region and the systems we need to change to get there. It touches how people get around, where they put down roots, the work they do, the culture and green spaces they experience, and how our region prepares for and weathers future storms.

By 2035, the plan aims to:
 
  • Make it easier and safer to move around the region
  • Strengthen neighborhoods so more families can thrive close to jobs, schools, and services
  • Grow a resilient, inclusive economy with strong industries and real opportunity
  • Protect and celebrate our cultural and natural assets, from nightlife and music to parks and waterfronts
  • Prepare the region to adapt and lead in the face of extreme weather and climate impacts
Professionals on Royal St.
Professionals on Royal St.

Why Vision 2035 and why now?

Greater New Orleans has a rhythm unlike any other that you can feel in the culture, hospitality, and the way we show up for one another. In 2023, New Orleans & Company and regional partners stepped back to truly assess how in-sync that rhythm is with our future, recognizing both our strengths and the fractures that still disrupt daily life. Vision 2035 is our response: it builds on earlier plans, recognizes where we’ve made progress since 2009, and focuses new energy on the gaps still holding the region back. It is designed to guide decisions over the next decade, help partners row in the same direction, and ensure that growth, investment, and the experiences of people who visit our region also strengthen stability, opportunity, and quality of life for the people who live here

Built with regional voices

Vision 2035 was not created in a vacuum, but grew out of a region-wide collaborative process. A cross-sector steering committee and more than 250 residents, leaders, and partners took part in interviews, roundtables, working sessions, and community pop ups that shaped and reshaped the plan’s priorities and strategies.

By the numbers:
 
  • 70+ interviews with leaders, nonprofits, employers, and regional partners
  • 120+ community members engaged through sessions and conversations
  • 20+ vision and master plans researched and incorporated into the planning process 
  • 5 roundtables sessions with nonprofit leaders and employers
Crescent Park at Sunset
Paul Broussard
Crescent Park at Sunset

A framework for systems change

Vision 2035 is set up as a systems plan. It connects the long-term vision for the region with specific areas where action will have the biggest impact. You can think about it in three simple layers:

The vision

Greater New Orleans as a great place to live, learn, work, and visit.

The outcomes

Clear improvements in mobility, neighborhood vitality, economic opportunity, culture, and climate impacts.

The leverage points

Leverage points are the specific places in our systems where a small, well-coordinated shift can unlock much larger change across the region. By focusing work and collaboration there, Vision 2035 aims to transform the underlying conditions that shape daily life rather than just treating symptoms.

Selfie in Front of NOLA Mural
Selfie in Front of NOLA Mural

Ten leverage points for progress

The plan identifies ten leverage points, almost like acupuncture for our region: targeted places where a focused intervention can relieve pressure across whole systems, improving quality of life and strengthening the community from the inside out.

  1. Connect voices across the region: Make sure people from different neighborhoods, parishes, and communities are heard in planning, storytelling, and decision-making.
  2. Connect people and places with better transportation: Improve how residents and visitors move within and across parishes through more reliable, connected transportation options into and out of the region.
  3. Make Greater New Orleans more family-friendly: Create more safe spaces, experiences, and opportunities for young people and families who visit with kids.
  4. Shape and support dynamic neighborhoods: Invest in neighborhoods so they have the mix of affordable housing, services, jobs, and amenities families need to thrive.
  5. Grow prosperity for small businesses: Support small business corridors as places where local entrepreneurs, culture, and commerce can grow together.
  6. Boost the economy with strong industries and good jobs: Grow innovative and new industries, deepen relationships with employers, and expand access to quality jobs, training, and career pathways.
  7. Increase high-quality green space: Bring more parks, trees, and natural spaces into neighborhoods, corridors, and visitor areas so people can connect with each other.
  8. Maintain a world-class asset portfolio: Reimagine and reinvest in major regional assets like the riverfront, lakefront, youth sports complexes, and cultural venues so they stay vibrant and welcoming.
  9. Celebrate and sustain our cultural community: Support the people and organizations that carry the culture with visibility, resources, and room to lead, so culture bearers can make a sustainable living here.
  10. Lead in extreme weather innovation and adaptation: Position Greater New Orleans as a leader in how a region prepares for, responds to, and recovers from extreme weather and its impacts.

Steering Committee

New Orleans & Company recognizes the value of partnerships with expertise, resources, and influence to lead meaningful progress in resolving the region’s challenges. In 2024, a Steering Committee formed to define the plan’s long-term vision, advise on facilitation of the planning process itself, and serve as ambassadors for plan participation and implementation.

Sunrise over Jackson Square
Justen Williams, New Orleans & Company
Sunrise Over Jackson Square

From vision to action

Vision 2035 is a long-term roadmap that is ready for action, beginning with a first set of Phase 1 interventions that translate the plan’s big-picture outcomes into concrete steps partners can take now. These early efforts focus on visible, high-impact areas such as transit connectivity, neighborhood and corridor investment, green space, youth opportunity, and cultural assets. Each intervention will be supported by a cross-sector committee with the influence, expertise, and relationships needed to move work from concept to real change on the ground and set the rhythm for later phases of the plan.

Who will carry the work forward?

Vision 2035 is designed as a shared roadmap that many hands can carry. An implementation committee will coordinate across partners, track progress, and keep the work centered on the people who live and work in Greater New Orleans. Transition and issue-specific committees will steward Phase 1 interventions within each leverage point, aligning policies, programs, and funding so efforts reinforce one another. New Orleans & Company will serve as convener, storyteller, and partner alongside local government, regional agencies, business and industry, cultural organizations, and other organizations and groups committed to moving the region forward.

Business Group by Riverfront
Business Group by Riverfront

How to engage with Vision 2035

Vision 2035 only works if it keeps people at the center: the residents, workers, culture bearers, and businesses that make Greater New Orleans what it is. In this next phase, we are bringing together partners with the knowledge, reach, and commitment to lead specific interventions, share data and insight, and stay accountable for results. By aligning their efforts around this shared vision, we can turn ideas into action and build a future where everyone who lives, works, learns, and visits here feels the benefits daily.

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