Urban form encompasses the physical shape and design of a city, comprising both natural and built environments. The layout of Bend’s streets, location and design of homes and businesses, and distances between destinations all inform the city’s urban form and directly affect the quality of life for residents. Urban form influences land values; where residents live, work, shop and relax; everyday travel choices; and whether commute trips can be made by walking or biking, using transit, or driving.

Urban form “typologies” are used in Bend’s growth management planning to provide a standardized system for organizing and classifying different development patterns around the city. The typologies help capture the current mixture of land uses and create a palette to describe the desired future urban form of Bend; however, they are intended to be descriptive rather than regulatory.

The typologies are broadly organized into Centers and Corridors, Employment and Mixed Use Districts, and Neighborhoods. These are summarized in brief below, along with diagrams for each category. These are followed by a combined diagram illustrating Bend’s future urban form (Figure 11-5). The diagrams are not regulatory – they are visual tools that capture the City’s growth concept and intentions for expansion areas as well as infill and redevelopment areas. For additional description of the typologies and how they were developed, see the Urban Form Report in Appendix Y.