The next Austin for our state?

Could the San Joaquin River, long a dividing line in central California, unite a region in pursuit of a better future?

In Madera County, across the river from Fresno, construction has begun on a new unincorporated city of multiple planned communities. Within a generation, it seems likely to swell to more than 100,000 people. On the Fresno side, the county is developing open space, and the city of Clovis is expanding. Rising together, the new Madera town, Fresno, and Clovis could constitute a tri-cities area in the San Joaquin Valley.

If those three cities cohere into a stronger and wealthier region by midcentury—and that’s a big if—greater Fresno could transform itself from a relatively poor place of 1 million people into California’s answer to Austin, an inland metropolis, capable of spreading the Golden State’s coastal prosperity to its dusty interior.

Of course, such a transformation would require extensive regional planning of the sort that is little known in Fresno. Such planning would involve stronger regional governance and funding for transportation, economic development, water management, recreation, and air quality. And building such systems would demand collaboration among local governments that are far more accustomed to suing each other.

Unfortunately, the very structure of California, and its land-use planning, work against turning Fresno into a regional powerhouse. In our state, local jurisdictions are weak and have little power to raise their own revenues; so they must compete with other localities, often using questionable subsidies, in the chase for developments and the taxes they bring. The game is: support development that provides revenue for your city, while spreading the costs—in traffic, water, and air quality— onto your neighbors.

Madera and Fresno Counties, and Fresno city, have spent decades suing each other to block their respective development plans. But most of that litigation is over, offering an opportunity to build together.

Such collaboration should include more resilient water infrastructure (the new Madera developments tout their water efficiency), and tax-sharing to improve the river itself and create a regional transportation network. The area also needs to recruit more local government officials who have training and deep experience in regional planning.

The new river city ought to inspire these efforts. After all, Madera, the county on Fresno’s northwestern flank, is saying via new development that it doesn’t want to be small and poor and isolated anymore. That’s the same message all of greater Fresno must embrace.

Indeed, Madera County is pitching its new developments as a huge step forward for central California: master-planned communities with trails and schools and job centers and water recharge facilities wrapped in, providing the density and smaller lots of urban living. The signature project, now under construction, is Riverstone, with commercial space and 6,600 homes across six themed districts, along Highway 41.

“Riverstone,” boasts one brochure, “will be a celebration of California living where people of every generation can enjoy the relaxed and informal spirit of the Golden State.”

Other nearby developments should be similar, and the Madera construction is close to river adjacent Fresno County projects—like a town size development near Friant Dam.

“This is going to be a new town and we have this opportunity with a blank canvas to do it right,” Madera County Supervisor Brett Frazier told a local TV station.

Much could go wrong. If the new river city doesn’t produce promised jobs and inspire better transportation, the expanded development could fuel sprawl, add to air pollution, and turn 41—a favored route to Yosemite—into a traffic nightmare.

Successful regionalization will require outside help. The state’s climate change regime must prioritize infill development in central Fresno, so that the urban core isn’t weakened as people move to the new river city. Greater Fresno also badly needs high-speed rail (a signature bridge across the San Joaquin River is one piece of the ongoing construction) to provide connections to Northern and Southern California, making it an affordable crossroads between two world-class regional economies.

And Fresno has a large population of undocumented immigrants who badly need legal status so they can advance themselves, and their region, economically.

You should not bet the farm on the grand project of turning greater Fresno into the next great region. But if Madera’s new development can inspire progress in that direction, the state would have reason to celebrate—and perhaps call the new river city Future Town, Calif..