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SPUR articles, research, policy recommendations, and our magazine, The Urbanist

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2020 SPUR Impact Awards: Building Reach Code Team Helps San José Go Carbon Neutral

News /
The 2020 SPUR Impact Awards recognize outstanding job performance by public sector leaders in Santa Clara County. The 2020 SPUR Impact Awards recognize outstanding job performance by public sector leaders in Santa Clara County. This year’s ceremony recognized the City of San José’s Building Reach Code team that developed new building requirements to advance the city’s climate action plan and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Safety First

SPUR Report
The Bay Area is both a treasured place and a hazardous environment where flooding, wildfires and earthquakes are common today. These hazards are likely to become more frequent, larger and more damaging as climate change puts the region’s people, built environment and natural habitats at risk. As a region exposed to multiple hazards, how can we manage for all of them at the same time?

Let’s Fulfill the Vision of High-Speed Rail

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California is long overdue for a world-class transportation system that can support a growing economy, help expand economic opportunity to long-underserved areas of the state and support our ambitious carbon reduction priorities. The high-speed rail network currently under construction in the Central Valley can deliver on those bold objectives, but we must remain committed to fully funding its completion.

COVID-19 and SPUR Events

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As the coronavirus continues to make headlines, SPUR is keeping members and event attendees updated and informed on the precautions we are taking in response to the recent outbreak.

2020 SF Good Government Awards: Goal to Roll Team Tackles a Backlog to Let City Revenue Flow

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The 2020 San Francisco Good Government Awards, held on March 4, recognized outstanding job performance by those serving the City and County of San Francisco. This year’s ceremony recognized the Goal to Roll team, a multi-year, cross-division initiative that, as of June 2019, eliminated the City’s property tax assessment backlog for the first time in over twenty-five years.

2020 SF Good Government Awards: CalFresh Expansion Team Makes Food Stamps More Accessible

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The 2020 San Francisco Good Government Awards, held on March 4, recognized outstanding job performance by those serving the City and County of San Francisco. This year's ceremony recognized the CalFresh Expansion team, a cross-departmental effort to ensure increased access to nutrition benefits for more than 40,000 seniors and persons with disabilities.

2020 SF Good Government Awards: Peggy Sugarman Develops an Injury Hotline to Keep City Employees Safe and Healthy

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The 2020 Good Government Awards, held on March 4, recognized outstanding job performance by those serving the city and county of San Francisco. The ceremony honored Peggy Sugarman for streamlining the worker's compensation processes, creating efficiencies to grow and stabilize her department and developing a city-wide Injury Hotline staffed 24 hours a day by a registered nurse.

2020 SF Good Government Awards: Emylene Aspilla Improves Working Conditions for More Than 46,000 SFO Employees

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The 2020 Good Government Awards, held on March 4, recognized outstanding job performance by those serving the city and county of San Francisco. The ceremony honored Emylene Aspilla for her work improving work conditions for more than 46,000 SFO employees by working with organizations like BART, engaging the community and developing the innovative Workforce Employee Board.

One Simple Way SF Can Get More Affordable Housing and Public Benefits

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San Francisco supervisors are about to vote on a plan amendment that would bring affordable housing, community benefits and open space improvements to the Market Octavia area. Some are calling for the amendment to set affordability and public benefit requirements even higher. But the way to get the most benefit for San Francisco from this proposal is simply to pass it as it stands.

Four Key Actions to Solve for Coastal Flooding and Sea Level Rise in the Bay Area: a Governance Proposal

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Around the San Francisco Bay, a number of different processes are underway to address sea level rise, coastal flooding and other climate change impacts on the Bay shoreline. To bring all of these efforts together and make sure they complement — rather than compete with — one another, SPUR and SFEI propose four policy ideas for how to govern adaptation strategies across the region.

There Are No Cars in Wakanda

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In an essay for the exhibition Cars: Accelerating the Modern World , SPUR’s Allison Arieff asks: What would happen if we didn’t let the car determine the design of our cities and the pattern of our daily lives? Cities, she argues, might end up looking a lot like the fictional world at the center of the film Black Panther .

Transit Fare Integration Wins Transformative Projects Competition

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The results of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission first-ever Transformative Transportation Projects competition are in: We are thrilled to share that integrated transit fares — a proposal from SPUR, Seamless Bay Area and others — rose to the top as not only the most transformative of the 11 finalists but one of the highest-performing projects overall.

Remembering John Kriken

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Architect, urban designer, city planner, teacher and long-time SPUR member John Kriken died on January 23 after a long illness. A retired Skidmore, Owings & Merrill partner and the founder of the firm’s Urban Design and Planning Studio, he helped turn the firm into one of the world’s most famous designers of cities. His plans and designs are legion across the Bay Area and Asia.

Leading With Public Space: The Case for Guadalupe River Park

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We are excited to announce that, through investment made by the Knight Foundation and in partnership with the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy, SPUR will embark on a three-year research and planning project for Guadalupe River Park. Our work will focus on understanding the park’s current challenges, investigating what is possible, raising community understanding and awareness, and inspiring a conversation around the power of place.

To Achieve Seamless Transit, We Must Change What and How We Build

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The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has made some big improvements to its methodology for assessing transportation proposals and deciding which ones to recommend for funding. What’s more, the improved tool provides a useful diagnostic for how project funding and planning in the Bay Area needs to change. SPUR offers three key observations on what this new perspective means for the next generation of transportation investments.

Driving Change

Policy Brief
The Fair Value Commuting Demonstration project addresses a challenge that has plagued cities for decades: Too many people drive alone to work, creating traffic, wasting time and productivity, and degrading air quality and safety. Four Silicon Valley cities tested a package of strategies and technologies to tackle the issue. SPUR provided independent research to help assess the results and determine next steps.

A Bolder Vision for Downtown Oakland

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After years of work, the City of Oakland is close to completing a specific plan for downtown Oakland. While the current draft is a great improvement over earlier drafts, SPUR believes that the plan needs to be more visionary and that it should encourage both jobs and housing — and put them in the right places.