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December 21, 20112012 Piero N. Patri Fellowship: Call for ApplicationsSPUR is pleased to issue a call for applicants for a twelve-week fellowship in the summer of 2012.The Piero N. Patri Fellowship in Urban Design is a hands-on position for a current graduate student or 2010/2011 graduate in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture or a related field. The fellowship provides the opportunity to gain firsthand experience working in the urban design and planning field on a project that will have a positive impact on the city of San Francisco and the Bay...
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December 19, 2011California's Latest Experiment in Democracy: Deliberative Polling By Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy DirectorEver the pioneer in the political process, California is once again experimenting with its democracy, this time with new approach to helping the public understand reform proposals. Conducted earlier this year, the What’s Next California Project is California’s first state-wide deliberative poll, in which a random sample of the population is polled on important public-policy issues, then gathers to discuss those issues and is polled again. Deliberative polls have been conducted...
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December 15, 2011Should We Change the Structure of the Bay Area’s Regional Government? By Egon Terplan, Regional Planning DirectorThis is a time of significant flux in the Bay Area’s regional planning landscape.First, there is a serious proposal in the California State Legislature to change the way the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) is governed. MTC is the main funder of transportation in the Bay Area. The proposal, Assembly Bill 57, would add seats on this commission for the cities of San Jose and Oakland. It would be the first change to the allocation of seats on the MTC since it was formed in 1970....
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December 5, 2011The Chickens and Goats Next Door: an Oakland Snapshot by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerUrban animal husbandry, though nothing new, is a cause for concern for many people – especially planners. Chickens, rabbits, bees and goats conjure up nightmares of odors, noises, animal cruelty and more. As mentioned in an earlier post, when Oakland’s planning department held a meeting to discuss changes to urban agriculture regulations, nearly 300 people showed, many of them there primarily to talk about animals. Oakland, like many other jurisdictions nationwide, is proceeding...
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December 1, 2011Letting San Francisco's Streets Go Both Ways By Aaron BialickIn San Francisco, traffic planners are reversing the outdated, 20th-century strategy of engineering downtown streets into multi-lane, one-way motorways.Last month, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) converted a one-way commercial stretch of eastern Hayes Street to a calmer two-way traffic configuration. It’s just one project in a larger move toward making streets less focused on whisking cars through town and returning them to places for walking, bicycling,...
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November 28, 2011Public Utilities: Water, Power, Sewer … Food? by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerThe San Francisco Public Utilities Commission took two steps in support of urban agriculture at a recent meeting. The first step was making it easier for community gardeners and urban farmers to install new water hookups at their sites. Currently, the price of a new water meter installation is approximately $8,500. That high cost barrier has led many garden projects to source their water from a neighboring property rather than build their own connection with the water system, resulting in a...
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November 21, 2011Inventing a New Kind of American Dream At this year's Silver SPUR Awards Luncheon, SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf reflected on the contrasts between what he called "the totally dysfunctional state of our country right now and the remarkably functional state of our city and region." We are at a moment in history, he says, where solutions to the big problems are not coming out of Washington — they’re coming out of action at the local and regional level.Watch the speech: Find Gabriel's...
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November 18, 2011New Blueprint of a City: San Jose's 2040 General Plan by Leah Toeniskoetter, SPUR San Jose DirectorThe General Plan, while simple in name, is one of a city’s most important documents. It determines how, where, when and if a city will grow. It shapes what our neighborhoods look like, where our places of work are located, and where our parks, schools and homes intersect — or don’t. It directs development to be pedestrian, bike or transit-oriented — or not. And it can make or break a city’s long-term success, since the policies and direction it lays out...
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November 17, 2011The 2011 Election's Real Winner? Getting Back to Basics by Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy DirectorWith Election 2011 finally past, San Francisco voters have sent several very clear messages to our local officials. Outside of the much-discussed mayor’s race, there were some important items on the ballot this year, and voters appear to have ignored the noise and focused on the business at hand. Not only did we have the shortest ballot for a mayoral election in more than 50 years, but we managed to address some of our most pressing challenges. What was on voters’ minds?1. We need...
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November 16, 2011Big Plans to Fix Big Problems at Ocean Beach by Ben Grant, Public Realm and Urban Design Program ManagerIn late October, SPUR shared with the public a set of draft recommendations for the Ocean Beach Master Plan, a long-range vision for managing coastal erosion, infrastructure, access and ecology on San Francisco’s western coast. Though the beach faces many challenges, it is south of Sloat Boulevard that the issues come to head. This is where the ocean’s erosive scour is worst, and it’s also the home of the Lake Merced Tunnel and other expensive, recently built wastewater...
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