HR&A collaborated with the Texas Broadband Development Office (BDO) to develop the State’s first-ever comprehensive statewide Digital Opportunity Plan, establishing their roadmap to universal broadband availability, affordability, and adoption.

Over a year-long planning process, we complemented quantitative analyses of significant disparities in broadband, computer, and digital skills access across Texas’s 256 counties with an extensive community and stakeholder engagement program to assess barriers to digital opportunity and assets available to overcome those challenges. Our team coordinated statewide working groups, outcome-focused task forces, grant readiness webinars, and regional collaboratives to reach Texans in every region of the state, while filling data gaps through public and organizational surveys. Through strategic interagency coordination, we helped establish the State’s vision, goals, and measurable objectives, and identified local government and nongovernmental partners to implement the Plan’s recommendations. This collaborative process ensured the Digital Opportunity Plan reflected community needs and aligned with existing broadband infrastructure programs.

The resulting Digital Opportunity Plan provides Texas with a clear roadmap for digital inclusion that will impact millions of residents. To ensure communities have access to the data HR&A prepared for the Digital Opportunity Plan, HR&A introduced a solution that transformed Texas’s extensive Plan into a user-friendly tool: the Texas Digital Opportunity Hub. The Hub includes customized data visualizations to spotlight the disparities in digital access across Texas’s diverse regions and communities, and additional visualizations to help users understand baseline data and key performance indicators. With data available at the county level, the Hub supports local planning and funding efforts by providing localities with the data they need to make the case for targeted funding and programs. Further, the Texas Digital Opportunity Hub lays the groundwork for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of digital opportunity efforts across the state, empowering BDO to track the impact of its future digital opportunity programs. To that end, HR&A has developed program evaluation frameworks for BDO to deploy once grantees and partners are onboarded, providing detailed guidance and instruments for measuring the impact of their investments over time.

In response to changes in federal funding supporting the implementation of broadband adoption efforts, HR&A advised the BDO on the development of new programs using state dollars to achieve the goals set forth in the Texas Digital Opportunity Plan and advance core state priorities such as workforce development and economic opportunity for all Texans. Our continuing partnership with the BDO has been part of establishing Texas as a national leader in creating sustainable digital opportunity solutions that strengthen economic opportunity, educational access, and community resilience across the state.

Explore:

Great Headway for the Texas Digital Opportunity Plan

Texas Digital Opportunity Hub

Press:

State broadband leaders connect with Burnet County residents — DailyTrib.com

East Texans provide input to help increase broadband internet access — KTRE

Officials discuss the importance of internet access in rural East Texas — KETK

HR&A partnered with the Trinity Park Conservancy to develop an Equitable Development Toolkit that transforms a $150 million investment in Dallas’s Harold Simmons Park into a catalyst for community opportunity. Through comprehensive analysis and stakeholder engagement, we created implementable strategies to ensure the 200-acre park connecting Downtown Dallas, West Dallas, and Oak Cliff strengthens neighborhoods while addressing systemic inequities.

Our work began with understanding the complex dynamics at play through real estate market analysis, demographic research, and extensive stakeholder consultation. We engaged local community members, national experts, and regional leaders to identify how park development could either exacerbate existing inequities or create new pathways for opportunity. By examining both successful models and past failures in similar contexts, we developed a nuanced understanding of what strategies would be most effective for this unique Trinity River location and the diverse communities it serves.

The Equitable Development Plan provides the Conservancy with a detailed toolkit of policies, advocacy efforts, initiatives, and partnerships to achieve equitable development. The Equity Toolkit offers discrete tactics to prevent involuntary displacement, facilitate opportunity neighborhoods, protect cultural heritage, promote wealth creation and community ownership, and establish equitable practices within the Conservancy. We prepared an action plan detailing roles for the Conservancy, City, and private partners, while conducting a real estate impact study that estimated net-new property value and tax revenues through 2050, accounting for trade-offs between maximizing real estate value and uplifting equity and inclusion.

HR&A has continued to support the Trinity Park Conservancy in analyzing and developing capital and operations and maintenance funding strategies and updated impact projections to reflect changes in the park’s program. Harold Simmons Park broke ground in Spring 2025.

Explore:

Harold Simmons Park Equitable Development Toolkit

Press:

‘This parkis happening’: Dallas breaks ground on $325 million Harold Simmons Park — Dallas Morning News

A 250-acre parkis being built right off the Trinity River in the center of Dallas. Here’s a look at what it’ll look like — WFAA