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March 31, 2011How Leftover Urban Spaces Can Fix Big Problems for San Francisco BY KAREN STEENThe City of San Francisco owns 1,625 parcels of unmaintained paved land, odd alley-like spaces behind industrial buildings and beneath overpasses. Most are no wider than a city street, but together they have a combined surface area half the size of Golden Gate Park.That’s a lot of city-owned land just sitting there collecting plastic bags. Their shape, size and location — often alongside highways or near industry — make these leftover lots unusable for traditional...
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March 30, 2011Bay Area Work Trends Lead to Increased Density BY ED PARILLONCo-working studio [Photo by flickr user ahopsi]According to a piece in Sunday’s Chronicle, tech employment in San Francisco is approaching its dot-com peak:"The city had an estimated 32,180 tech jobs last year, compared with 34,116 in 2000, according to an analysis of state employment data by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle. In 2004, the number of tech jobs had fallen to 18,210."The most interesting thing about the growth in jobs is that it hasn’t been...
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March 18, 2011The Weekly Snapshot POSTED BY ANIKA JESITeaching Urban DesignThis year, Parsons will offer the nation's first ever undergraduate degree in Urban Design. Urban Omnibus talks with Victoria Marshall, the program's director, about her goal of teaching "how to see the city as a designer."http://urbanomnibus.net/2011/03/teaching-urban-design-2/TWhere to Drill Next: Main StreetA 2001 study found that building fuel-efficient cars would save more oil than land and ocean drilling could ever hope to gain. On the heels of these...
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March 16, 2011Budget Update--High Speed Rail Funding In Jeopardy POSTED BY JENNIFER WARBURGIf the Fiscal Year 2011 budget debate in Washington has been dramatic, it has also unfolded utterly predictably. But though threats to HSR funding were foreseeable, their ultimate effect is still highly uncertain. The GOP-controlled House proposes cuts to HSR that do three things:1. Eliminate all 2011 funding for high speed rail projects2. Rescind unobligated funds for high speed rail appropriated in 2010 and 20093. Bar other states from using the $2.4 billion in high speed rail funds...
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March 15, 2011An Update on Van Ness BRT POSTED BY STEPHEN TUSeveral weeks ago, I attended a briefing at the SFCTA on the progress of the Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit project. BRT along Van Ness is currently in the midst of final environmental studies and preliminary engineering. Public comment will be solicited this spring on the Environmental Impact Report, after which the project team will recommend a preferred alternative for adoption by the Authority and SFMTA boards.The Van Ness BRT project is true Bus Rapid Transit – it is not a simple...
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March 14, 2011The Future of Redevelopment Debate POSTED BY JENNIFER WARBURG Untitled from SPUR on Vimeo.Early this year Governor Jerry Brown shocked state and local leaders with his proposal to eliminate all of California’s 425 redevelopment agencies. Since then, debate has raged in the press over the ramifications of shuttering these agencies. While the future of San Francisco’s own redevelopment areas is in question (Transbay, Treasure Island, Hunters Point), similar questions arise across the state.On Thursday, March 3, SPUR and the Bay Citizen brought...
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March 11, 2011Initial Vision Scenario Released for the Bay Area POSTED BY EGON TERPLAN The Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission released their Initial Vision Scenario for growth in the Bay Area at a meeting in Oakland today. By 2035, the scenario assumes the Bay Area will grow by 2 million people (to 9.4 million) and 1.2 million jobs (to 4.5 million). The scenario is the first major milestone in the development of the Bay Area’s Sustainable Communities Strategy, a plan designed to accomodate growth while reducing greenhouse...
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March 11, 2011Weekly Snapshot POSTED BY ANIKA JESILargest Mall in the World is a Chinese Ghost Town The world's largest mall, located in Southern China, is a vast ghost land with occupancy rates that hover at 1%. The mall, built to serve what may someday become a Chinese mega-city, is a glimpse at what can occur when development precedes growth. http://i.gadling.com/2011/03/02/largest-mall-in-the-world-is-a-chinese-ghost-town/?ncid=&a_dgi=aolshare_twitter A Place-Based Approach to Food Access: Creating a Healthier Future for Birmingham...
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March 10, 20112011 Piero N. Patri Fellowship Call for ApplicantsSPUR, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, is pleased to issue a call for applicants for a twelve-week fellowship in the summer of 2011. The Piero N. Patri Fellowship in Urban Design is a hands-on position for a graduate student or 2011 graduate in landscape architecture, urban design, or architecture. The fellowship provides the opportunity for the Fellow to gain firsthand experience working in the urban design and planning field on a project that...
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March 8, 2011SFCTA's Long Range Transportation Plan Explores Future Transportation Patterns POSTED BY ED PARILLON The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is working on an update to the city’s Long Range Transportation Plan. As part of the update, the authority has been conducting analysis of transportation patterns in the city, and looking at projected growth, and its implications. Some of the results have already been released (pdf), and the findings should provide advocates and governments in the Bay Area some food for thought:1. The growth in traffic...
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