SPUR Publications

San Jose’s proposed Environmental Sustainability Plan will go a step beyond California’s ambitious climate goals with a strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in compliance with the 2016 Paris Accords. In becoming the first American city to develop a “Paris compliant” pathway, San Jose aims to lead the way among cities in reducing climate impacts.

City planner, former SPUR Board member and long-time SPUR volunteer George Williams passed away on November 7. The deputy director of San Francisco’s Department of City Planning for 20 years, he was instrumental in creating San Francisco’s 1985 Downtown Plan. We will greatly miss George, and we’re grateful for his years of service to SPUR and to the City of San Francisco.

Experts agree that the Bay Area is due for a major earthquake by the year 2050. In the event of such a disaster, Oakland and other cities will need to respond to both immediate and long-term challenges. At a recent SPUR forum, panelists talked about their work addressing uncertainty and mitigating seismic hazards in Oakland.

This summer, SPUR and the Knight Foundation took a delegation of South Bay elected officials and transit agency leaders to visit high-speed rail stations in the Netherlands and France. The trip was a quest for precedents as San Jose prepares to remake Diridon Station into one of the nation’s first high-speed rail hubs. Nine takeaways emerged from the trip as critical considerations for San Jose.

The scale of the devastating fires unfolding in the North Bay is a painful reminder of the earthquake disasters SPUR has studied over the years. As first responders valiantly work to contain the damage and save lives, government officials will soon need to shift their attention to the daunting task of rebuilding the northern part of our region. How should they proceed?

A group of regional stakeholders is working together to develop bold solutions to address the Bay Area's housing challenges. CASA, the Committee to House the Bay Area, will spend the next year building consensus on the “three Ps”: increasing housing production, preserving housing and protecting residents from displacement. SPUR offers recommendations on how to move the needle forward on the first P, increasing housing production.

Last month, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee issued an executive directive calling for the city to speed up housing production in order to deliver 5,000 homes a year on an ongoing basis. The mayor’s directive argues that there is more that the city can and must do to sustain the pace of housing creation over the long term.

Germany’s baugruppen (“building groups”) are a modern form of co-housing in which households of all kinds collectively finance and build a multifamily building as a means to improve quality of life and foster community. Could it work here? SPUR is hosting a lunchtime panel conversation on October 5 with experts in co-housing and co-living to explore baugruppen and other models.

Voters around the Bay Area have shown their commitment to addressing homelessness by passing generous funding measures — but resistance to proposed housing that would actually serve homeless residents remains strong. In order to approve and build these homes, the Bay Area will need political will and public support. Here are three reasons why supportive housing should matter to all of us.

The extension of BART to San Jose is moving forward. The city and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority Board of Directors will soon vote on some major decision points: where to locate stations and what tunneling method to use. While SPUR isn’t taking a position on all of these decisions, we offer a few ways to think about each of the options.

Oakland neighborhoods like Temescal and Rockridge are walkable, have great restaurants, parks and transit access — and are too expensive for most. These neighborhoods would be great places to build the city’s needed housing, but many have zoning regulations that prevent it.

Ford GoBike has launched in five Bay Area cities. At its planned scale of 7,000 bikes, the program has potential to change how people get around — but only if there are policies in place to help guarantee its success. SPUR shares five ways Bay Area cities can get the most out of this and other bike-sharing programs.

The next generation of the Clipper transit payment system is now under development. While Clipper has removed a barrier to traveling on different transit operators, it did so only by masking a complex web of transit fares, passes and policies, making it challenging for the region to realize the promise of transit. We take a close look at the problem and recommend next steps.

Governor Jerry Brown and California’s legislative leadership are expected to unveil a package of housing bills this week in response to widespread recognition that the state faces a significant housing shortage and a resulting affordability crisis. The announcement explicitly specified a general obligation bond, a permanent funding source for affordable housing and regulatory reforms, but more proposals are supposedly under discussion.