This article outlines a new approach to the implementation of New Urbanist and smart growth principles. The approach is termed transect planning and is based on the creation of the set of human habitats that vary by their level and intensity of urban character. In transect planning, this range of environments, from rural to urban, is the basis for organizing the components of the built world: building, lot, land use, street and all of the other physical elements of the human habitats. Transect planning seeks to create immersive environments, created to preserve the integrity of each location along the rural-to-urban continuum.