A new home will be built, on average, every half-an-hour in the West Midlands by the end of the decade, with the majority focused on urban areas.
The ambitious building programme, which will see 365,000 new houses by 2026, is part of a blueprint aimed at securing the region's future prosperity.
Unveiling the plans yesterday David Smith, chairman of the West Midlands Regional Assembly, billed them as the "most important vision that has every been produced for this region".
It aims to marry economic prosperity based on developing transport, education, health, environment and other infrastructure with new housing provision to create thriving communities.
Four out of every 10 of the homes are to be centred around the urban conurbations of Birmingham, Coventry, the Black Country and Stoke-on-Trent. They will be focused on brownfield sites and linked with economic regeneration, such as the development of job-creating ventures.
At the launch of the West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy which spells out the new housing plan, Mr Smith said: "It is the most important vision that has ever been produced by this region.
"The West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy will change the way we live for the next 20 years.
"Part of the strategy will be looking at how we bring people back into these vibrant centres and make sure they play their proper role.
"We need to identify where our centres of retail are going to be and all the things to ensure there are jobs and the things that ensure people work, live and are engaging within their location without thinking they have to travel massive distances."
Mr Smith said proper transport links were vital to turning the vision into reality. "There is little point delivering regeneration if you can't travel from one point to another. Get it wrong and 5.3 million people will hold us to account. Get it right and people will prosper."
West Midlands Minister and Birmingham MP Liam Byrne (Lab Hodge Hill) also stressed the importance of the economic and housing regeneration plans.
"All of these things say to me that this region is on the brink of something big. But only if we seize the challenges to build on these foundations and to build fast.
"It is not enough for us to be a region that trades well and prospers to a certain extent.
"We have to be a region that grows. Where you don't have to leave to be successful, where the only limit to success is how high you want to make it."
Mr Byrne said £120 billion in public money would come up for grabs in the West Midlands over the next five years and, if used effectively, could secure a "different future". On the ambitious building plans, he added: "With 40 per cent of the 365,000 homes in four centres, nearly a third affordable status, this shows how we can build a new home almost every half hour before the next decade.
"We are the first English region to try anything so ambitious. We see a vision to reverse the drift away from major towns and cities. The choices and the plans we put in place in the next three to four years will decide whether we are part of Britain's success in the future or not."
Mr Byrne, who was appointed as West Midlands Minister earlier this year and is also Immigration Minister, said his dealings with Whitehall officials had indicated a fault line in the region's transport strategy.
"We still need need to understand how some of the things we ask for on our transport wish-list are better rooted in a well-thought through analysis of what is needed for new communities and new jobs," he said.
However, greater concentration on key issues in recent months appears to have turned the tide, he added.
"I now talk to Whitehall civil servants about New Street and they talk about it in a totally different way to five or six months ago. What has impressed them is that it is the region that says this is the top of the list."
