The Quality Growth Toolbox offers an extensive collection of resources, models, best practices and other tools designed to assist communities as they plan for growth. Designed utilizing an “expert system,” the Quality Growth Toolbox can help users pinpoint the resources which are most relevant to them by refining their search based on specific growth goals and using criteria to identify those tools that best match their particular context and needs.

To begin using the Toolbox, we highly recommend you create a user log-in so that you can retrieve saved searches at a future date. Once you have logged in, you are ready to use the expert system to explore the tools and techniques that can be used by your community. You can conduct a General Search of the tools by simply selecting which Quality Growth Goal you are hoping to achieve. You can also conduct a Refined Search by selecting specific suitability and policy characteristics. We encourage you to read more about the background of the project and Quality Growth Goals and the explanation of the “expert system” methodology. You can also click here to view all of the tools in the Quality Growth Toolbox.

The Quality Growth Toolbox is a resource that will continue to be enhanced and expanded over time, and your help is needed to ensure that it is robust and useful. Therefore, we hope all Texas planners, design professionals and others will help us improve and refine this online system. This can be accomplished in one of two ways. First, we invite you to make use of the expert system and give us constructive feedback on the parts that do and do not work for you (note: you must be a registered user to provide feedback, click here to register).

Second, we ask all design professionals and communities to share their reports and studies on any of the quality growth implementation tools and technique listed in the system, so we can keep the resource pages up to date and useful for all. We have an online submission form if you would like to share a web link, study (e.g., a pdf file) or other material.

It will take a collaborative effort on the part of all to help us realize the full potential of this online quality growth expert system. We thank you in advance for your assistance and support.

The Quality Growth Tool Box is a partnership of Envision Central Texas, The University of Texas School of Architecture and Center for Sustainable Development, and The University of Texas Center for Transportation Research.