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July 30, 2010Weekly Snapshot BY ANIKA JESI The Castro parklet [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]Fleeing Phoenix out of fear of Arizona's immigration law: Thousands of immigrants are fleeing Phoenix, AZ before the state's harsh new immigration law goes into place, leaving neighborhoods vacant, and forcing local stores out of business.Seedbombing for the modern guerilla gardening movement: Guerilla gardeners are arming themselves with "seedbombs," their new weapon of choice in the quest to make the world a greener place....
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July 30, 2010SFpark: Re-imagining How We Park in SF BY JON ROGERS Taking the guess work out of parking. That's what SFMTA's innovative new parking program, SFpark, aims to accomplish. When implemented, the program will dramatically change how drivers locate and pay for parking.A new SFpark "smart meter" [Photo Credit: flickr user SFMTA_sfpark]Here's a quick breakdown of how SFpark works: Sensors located in parking spaces and City-owned garages will track real-time parking availability This information will be uploaded to the SFpark data...
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July 29, 2010New Study Highlights Untapped Energy Potential of Existing Commercial Buildings BY TIMOTHEA TWAY [Photo Credit: flickr user Snapsi42]Next 10, an independent, nonpartisan organization that studies the intersection between the economy, the environment, and quality of life in California, has just released a new report on the untapped energy efficiency potential associated with existing commercial buildings. The paper outlines the energy efficiency benefits associated with making improvements to commercial buildings and analyzes the market barriers which make these improvements difficult.Key...
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July 28, 2010HSR Report: France BY EMILY EHLERS As California lays the high-speed rail groundwork, SPUR continues its series on international precedents. While France built high-speed rail two decades after Japan and within a different state apparatus, the system had remarkably similar results: growth and concentration. France teaches us that a state investment in high-speed rail (HSR) can have major impacts on places that are isolated and suffering from lagging economic performance. The examples of Lille, an old industrial and mining center...
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July 27, 2010Bringing Geary Back BY ED PARILLON Geary Boulevard runs almost the entire width of San Francisco, from Market to the ocean. The name of the street hides a lot of history — John White Geary was the first mayor of San Francisco post-statehood, and he would go on to govern Kansas during its "Bloody Kansas" period in the buildup to the Civil War. But that's a matter for another post though — this post is about forgotten transportation.Today, the traffic on Geary reflects San Francisco's dual nature. On...
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July 26, 2010Datablog: Finding the World's Dimensions BY JORDAN SALINGER The power of data to destroy preconceived notions seems to drive Hans Rosling, co-founder of Gapminder. My first experience with the website was in the spring of 2009 when H1N1 hysteria reached its apex. When a friend sent over the link, I thought I was looking at a simple scatter plot. I had neglected to notice the play button at the bottom of the screen -- an animated feature which shows change over time. In this case, the graph compared the number of news articles about tuberculosis and H1N1...
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July 23, 2010Weekly Snapshot BY ANIKA JESI [Photo Credit: Colleen McHugh]London opens bike superhighways: London sets a positive urban example by installing bicycle superhighways on the previously bike-unfriendly streets, in hopes of inciting a "cycling revolution."Longtime denizens resist call to leave terminal: As most San Francisco residents welcome the arrival of a new Transbay Terminal, others are having more difficulty adjusting to the change-- specifically the homeless individuals who used to call the old terminal home....
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July 23, 2010TechnoCRAFT: A DIY Approach to Technology, Art and Everything in Between BY EMILY EHLERS 5.5 Designers' wallpaper maze [Photo Credit: Switched on Set]You don't have to know what a fabber (digital fabricator) or modder (person who modifies) is to enjoy TechnoCRAFT, the latest show at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.Like the word itself, the exhibit offers projects that blur any distinction there may still be between technology and art, designer and user or subject and object. Drawing from household goods, video games and prison-inmate implements, TechnoCRAFT displays...
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July 22, 2010Made in the Dogpatch BY FABIANA MEACHAM The Dogpatch may already be on everyone's radar as a neighborhood on the rise (see last year's New York Times "Surfacing" feature), but touring the area's artisan manufacturers lends a much more tangible element to all the hype. This former shipbuilding center has attracted a new wave of craftsmen, producing everything from messenger bags to chocolates to modern backyard cabanas. SFMade's Kate Sofis led us through the Dogpatch's flourishing manufacturing community...
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July 21, 2010SF Walks: Outer Richmond and Sutro Baths BY COLLEEN MCHUGH Colleen McHugh, native San Franciscan and resident SPUR photographer, will blog about a different walk through San Francisco each week of the summer, reflecting on what it means to live as a pedestrian in this city and some of the ways we can improve upon that experience. There are so many things a walk in San Francisco can be — from a protest to an errand to an active use of public space. This walk will serve as a kind of memory in motion. Find a map of Colleen's walk here. Above:...
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