In the next few decades, the U.S. population is forecast to swell to four hundred million. Cities are trying to find ways to draw these people into urban areas—a difficult task, as many Americans still favor single-family homes with front and back yards. In Austin, Texas, a largely horizontal city (like Baltimore, with its lines of rowhouses), a new development ordinance that's being implemented this year aims to cut back on sprawl and encourage center-city density, use of public transit, and bustling urban life.

Austin experienced a nearly twelve percent rise in population in just seven years, from 656,562 in 2000 to 735,088 in April of this year. According to the City of Austin, the city's population could surpass 800,000 by 2010. To deal with this expected population influx, the Austin City Council passed a complex, multifaceted ordinance on "vertical mixed-use" development last August; it took effect this January. It requires that new buildings along certain heavily traveled roads be comprised of a mix of residential and commercial space, with at least one residential floor atop the commercial space and with pedestrian access to the street.

To encourage developers to build these kinds of projects, some barriers that normally hinder construction are being removed. Among them are the ability to incorporate roughly fifty percent more housing units in a project than typically are allowed (until now, density and setback limits have reduced a project's developable square footage) and to allow varied use of the ground -floor commercial space (even when existing zoning ordinances say only offices can occupy the space, for example). To take advantage of these "relaxed standards," developers must comply with recently adopted commercial design rules, which include such items as height restrictions and requirements for partially shaded sidewalks to protect pedestrians from sunlight. Because of the relaxed standards, developers should be able to profit more easily from these projects.

To define where these vertical mixed-use projects can be built, a task force created in 2004 hammered out details of what's called an "overlay." It's basically a blanket that covers various city neighborhoods that line heavily used roads, or "core transit corridors"—defined in the new design standards as roads with "population density, a mix of users, and transit facilities to encourage and support transit use." Residents of areas included in the overlay are being given the chance to voice their concerns on how the vertical mixed-use ordinance would affect their neighborhoods (referred to as the "opt-in/opt-out" period). However, residents aren't permitted to reject vertical mixed-use outright; they can only make recommendations, and the City Council has the final say on neighborhoods' requests.

The overlay further promotes development by eliminating potential fights over zoning laws. Under this new program, vertical mixed-use development can be undertaken without zone changes on a core transit corridor, according to Austin City Councilman Brewster McCracken.

McCracken, who is both an enthusiastic supporter of vertical mixed-use and one of the key players in creating the new commercial design standards, says the idea was prompted by a call from Envision Central Texas for more urban density. Envision Central Texas is an influential nonprofit organization composed of neighborhood, environmental, business, and policy leaders who seek to sensibly develop the Austin area. The ordinance was patterned after a similar program in Arlington, Virginia. There, a "Special Coordinated Mixed-Use District" designation was established to create new, high-density development on public transit lines, resulting in more than thirty million square feet of new development and a lively downtown.

In Austin, more than twenty-five current and planned core transit corridors citywide fall under the vertical mixed-use overlay. The ordinance affects high-traffic roadways like East Riverside Drive. Each day, this road carries thousands of vehicles between Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and downtown. Where the east end of Riverside meets U.S. Highway 290 East, motorists are treated to a pretty, panoramic view of the modern and ever-burgeoning downtown skyline. However, the view along the road isn't so pretty: Lining the roadway are fast-food joints, convenience stores, pawnshops, hundreds of cheap apartments (primarily for University of Texas students), run-down strip retail centers, and acre after acre of vacant parcels that are up for sale.

Under the overlay, East Riverside Drive could be radically transformed within five years into what McCracken envisions as "the gateway corridor into Austin." Already, at least eight major vertical mixed-use developments are on the drawing board for the East Riverside corridor, according to McCracken.

Laura Morrison, president of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, says the vertical mixed-use program holds the potential to help Austin grow responsibly. "We know that there's going to be growth, but we want that growth to be an enhancement to the city and not degradation to the city," she says. Still, Morrison says, some residents are concerned the boost in vertical mixed-use will harm the city's infrastructure, aggravate traffic, and intensify parking problems.

In addition, some Austinites fear these new projects will price out current residents. Under the ordinance, only ten percent each of both rental and owner-occupied units must be affordable housing. However, during the opt-in/opt-out process, neighborhoods can recommend deeper affordability.

One woman who's an officer in her neighborhood association and a leader in a neighborhood planning group worries that the new mixed-use plan will create "a haven for the wealthy" because, she says, few current residents will earn enough to live in even the "affordable" housing, and the majority of new mixed-use apartments and condos will be too expensive for her current neighbors along East Riverside. Toni House, who owns a 45-year-old, 1,700-square-foot home in a neighborhood just south of East Riverside, says she isn't necessarily opposed to improvement of the East Riverside corridor. "We do want it to look really nice, we do want revitalization—but not at the expense of existing residents. We don't want to force everybody out," House says.

Despite concerns like these, more vertical mixed-use is on the horizon. Real estate developer Tom Terkel, vice president of the Real Estate Council of Austin, says the new program will accelerate the mixed-use trend in Austin, which is slightly behind other regions—including Baltimore—in terms of mixed use development. Five years ago, urban mixed-use was a relatively new concept in Austin, according to Terkel. But with the economic incentives of the mixed-use program in place, he says, it's now more financially enticing for developers to pursue vertical mixed-use projects.

However, Austin architect Richard Weiss says it won't be clear whether the vertical mixed-use overlay works until it's "road-tested" over the next year or so. Annual reviews will be performed to monitor the progress of the program, says Weiss, who helped craft the ordinance.

By building up rather than out, city leaders envision being able to boost population density in the city to accommodate the continued influx of urban dwellers and decrease sprawl. "I don't think anyone in the country has done something this significant," McCracken says of the vertical mixed-use program. "As more communities learn about it, I would fully expect them to adopt something like this."

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