Blog
Search the SPUR Blog
-
October 26, 2009This Week at SPUR: World Renowned Climate Scientist Ken Caldeira BY JULIE KIM SPUR is thrilled to welcome Ken Caldeira, head of the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, to the Urban Center for a lunchtime forum.The details: Wednesday, October 28, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. Free for SPUR members. General admission is $5. Location: SPUR Urban Center, 654 Mission St. (between New Montgomery & Third). Renowned for his groundbreaking research on ocean acidifcation, Caldeira's been in the news this month for publicly...
-
October 23, 2009SF Battles the Yogi Berra Parking Problem BY BEN LOWE Yogi Berra once posited about a restaurant suffering a perceived decline, "Nobody goes there anymore -- it's too crowded." San Francisco parking faces the same dilemma: high parking occupancy and low turnover make parking in San Francisco a headache as drivers are forced waste upwards of 45 minutes orbiting for a space, adding to traffic and burning gasoline.To combat this problem, the SFMTA is considering two proposals: SF Park, an initiative to use parking technology to...
-
October 23, 2009Lawn Chairs in Times Square BY BEN LOWE At a SPUR lunchtime forum yesterday, President of the Times Square Alliance (TSA) Tim Tompkins spoke about the evolution of Times Square over the past several decades. For decades, New York fought the uphill battle of making Times Square cleaner, safer, and more inviting, only to find themselves with a new set of challenges: the area has become so popular, particularly with tourists, that the sidewalks and plazas had far exceeded capacity, and locals worried that the area was losing its...
-
October 22, 2009Planning on the Edge: A Conversation with Six Planning Directors - posted by Julie Join us on Wednesday, November 4 at City Hall for this special event, featuring planning directors from six cities, co-sponsored by SPUR and the San Francisco Planning Department. The evening's lineup includes: BILL ANDERSON from San Diego SUSAN ANDERSON from Portland AMANDA BURDEN from New York City JOHN RAHAIM from San Francisco DIANE SUGIMURA from Seattle BRENT TODERIAN from Vancouver This event starts at 6 pm, and is free and open to the public. See you in two weeks!
-
October 16, 2009Planning Historians Unite! (This Weekend!) BY MARY It's not too late to catch some sessions at the National Conference in Planning History taking place at the Oakland Marriott this weekend. Organized by the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, many of the panels and tours are focused on the Bay Area, as well as their Sunday tours, which include "Historical Development and Ethnic Change in Oakland," "Urban Renewal in San Francisco" and "North of the Golden Gate: Growth Control, Open Space, and...
-
October 14, 2009Laura Tam! BY MARY Want to know the person behind all of SPUR's good sustainability work? Check out planetshifter.com's interview with Laura Tam, SPUR's Sustainable Devepment Policy Director and hear Laura's thoughts on the necessary relationship between environmentally responsible practices and making good cities, how SPUR moves beyond important research to implement policy and how she works on reducing her ecological footprint at home.
-
October 8, 2009Sea Level to Rise 5 Meters in 300 Years BY LAURA TAM, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT POLICY DIRECTOR A climate conference in Oxford concluded last week that whatever we can do to slow carbon emissions, it won't be enough to stop accelerated sea level rise. In fact, a German scientist who's widely regarded as one of the world's foremost experts on sea level rise, said his best guess was 1 meter this century (a lowball figure compared to the latest projections for California), and 5 meters in 300 years. Expect a lot of bleak climate news to be revealed over the next few months, as...
-
October 8, 2009Invade the Armory SPUR members toured the Mission Armory, the 200,000 square foot Moorish Castle Reproduction completed in 1914. From it's completion until 1976, the Armory was used as a National Guard facility, and later joined the National Register of Historic Places.The drill court, spanning nearly an acre, served not only as a military training facility, but also as boxing arena, and hall for social events for the City's national guardsmen. Future use as a community space will be managed...
-
October 1, 2009Growing on Our Buildings BY MARY Some of the first calculations of the benefits of green roofs are coming back and they're even better than expected: replacing typical roofing materials with plants across a city the size of Detroit would be the equivalent of removing the pollution of 10,000 SUVs in a year. This study is the first to measure the amount of carbon that could be captured by the extensive use of green roofs.Meanwhile, The New York Times is reporting the trend in real estate to use green roofs to lure potential...
-
September 30, 2009Our Great Boulevard BY MARY Today was the second day of the six-week Better Market Street Project trial number one, which diverts cars headed north off of Market Street at 8th and 6th avenues, in an attempt to reduce traffic on the oft-clogged street. What a transformation! The morning bicycle commute has become a breeze and we hope will encourage more workers to choose their two-wheeled vehicle.The Better Merket Street Project hopes his traffic reduction trial will be the beginning of the metamorphosis of Market Street...
Blog RSS Feed