The conservation strategy for 2010 involves purchasing those lands that are susceptible to fragmentation by urban development. Emphasis is placed on providing linkages between currently protected habitats to ensure the sustainability of federally listed threatened and endangered species. This conservation strategy assumes that already protected lands will remain in protection. The strategy acknowledges the value of ecologically sensitive lands, productive agricultural soils, riparian systems, coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and visual and cultural resources.
Centers were located to avoid the impacts to biodiversity, near intersections of major roads, and on developable land that was neither steep nor wet. Conservation purchases and greenbelts were added after the centers were located as a way to both connect them and provide identifiable edges. The combined pattern of development and conservation provides a highly linked network of natural areas and greenways directed at maintaining the regionŐs biodiversity while accommodating population growth. For people, greenways act as recreational, cultural, and scenic amenities through urban and natural landscapes; for wildlife, they act as extensive habitat corridors, allowing animals to move through an increasingly urbanized landscapes.
Eleven regional locations are identified as "centers," seven in Riverside and Orange Counties and four in San Diego County. The centers in the northern section of the region along Interstate-15 are developed with emphasis on urban infill, while those in San Diego County will be dominated by conservation. The eleven centers, the housing areas in Camp Pendleton, and the major existing urban concentrations are linked by a network of existing roads that also accommodate commuter bus and light rail transportation.
Because the urban infill strategies are based on existing development, most of the 500,000 new residents expected by 2010 will be located in centers in the northern part of the region. Consequently, only 15% of the new population will be accommodated in the four southern areas. The changes in land use between 1990+ and 2010 for the Multi-Centers, Alternative #4, are seen in figure 127.
When carried to build-out, rural residential development increases outside the designated centers, and the resultant Multi-Centers land cover at build-out is seen in figure 128.