Blog
Search the SPUR Blog
-
March 19, 2012Lean, Mean Ballot for San Francisco This June by Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy Director As the rest of the country eagerly watches the Republican presidential primary drama unfold, San Francisco prepares for a comparatively uneventful June election. Five proposed initiatives have dropped off the ballot, leaving the city to consider just two measures this election. Prop. A would change the competitive procurement and franchising for solid waste disposal in the city. Passage would end Recology’s regulated monopoly, and could put the city’s goal of zero waste by 2020 in...
-
March 15, 2012SPUR San Jose Launch Party: The Night in PicturesOn Thursday, March 8, the San Pedro Square Market filled with supporters of the new SPUR San Jose office, which opened in January. The 500 urbanists who joined us received a thundering welcome from San Jose Taiko, an award-winning traditional drumming group based in San Jose’s Japantown.The energy in the room continued to build as Leah Toeniskoetter, director of SPUR San Jose, asked the crowd what they love about their city. “Cities are the incubators of creativity in art,...
-
March 15, 2012Salesforce Exits Mission Bay: What It Means for SF By Jennifer Warburg and Egon TerplanOn February 28, Salesforce announced its was suspending plans to build a 2-million-square-foot campus on the 14 acres it had acquired in San Francisco’s Mission Bay. Citing that it has grown faster than expected, the company will instead lease existing space two miles north, near Market Street in San Francisco’s Central Business District.While the change of plans is certainly a temporary blow to Mission Bay, it can also be viewed as a reaffirmation of the importance of downtown San...
-
March 15, 2012Cultivating Public Spaces for Urban Farming by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerTwo sites owned by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in San Francisco moved closer to becoming urban agriculture projects this week. Since October, PUC staff members have been conducting an urban agriculture feasibility study of open space adjacent to two facilities: College Hill Reservoir (at 360 Elsie Street) in Bernal Heights and the perimeter of the Southeast Treatment Plant (at Phelps and Evans streets) in the Bayview. They presented a progress report and future timeline at the March...
-
February 24, 2012Signs of an Upswing for SF Economy in 2012 by Corey Marshall, Good Government Policy DirectorAs the economy struggles to recover in the Bay Area, what are the prospects for city revenues in San Francisco? City budget staffers and experts on the local economy gathered at the 2012 Annual Economic Briefing, hosted by SPUR's Municipal Fiscal Advisory Committee, to discuss regional trends and projections for the city’s major revenue streams. The upshot: Our experts are starting to see some good news on the horizon. The city trailed the state into this recession and though it is...
-
February 23, 2012Bay Area Cities Adjust to Life After Redevelopment By Sarah Karlinsky, Tomiquia Moss and Leah ToeniskoetterRedevelopment agencies across the state closed their doors on February 1, marking the end of an era for planning in California. SPUR has written previously about what the end of redevelopment means for the state. But how are the Bay Area’s central cities — San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose — dismantling their agencies? What’s going to happen to the on-going projects and existing assets held by redevelopment agencies? Is this the last word — or will we witness the...
-
February 22, 2012Making a Living as an Urban Farmer by Eli Zigas, Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program ManagerCan you make a living selling what you grow in a city?That’s a question a number of urban farming entrepreneurs have been working to answer in the past few years, and initial numbers are beginning to become public.The short answer is … maybe. For many new urban-farming businesses that have started in the past couple of years, it may be too soon to judge — just as it would be with any small business getting off the ground. It’s also a question of what level of income you...
-
February 1, 2012Walk the Bay Area with SPURMembers-only walking tours are one of the great benefits of joining SPUR. Tour leaders such as planners, architects, elected officials and other insiders spend a few hours with us, sharing their expert lens on our region. Want to know what's in store for 2012? Our new calendar of spring tours and other events is now online.For a peek at the kind of insight SPUR tours offer, check out William Leddy, principal of Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects, showing us Berkeley's Ed Roberts Campus in...
-
January 25, 2012The Future of Chinatown’s Stockton Street By Sam LaTronicaHow can a rich historical space welcome visitors and new community members while ensuring that it continues to work for current residents? This question is central to the future of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Stockton Street between Sacramento and Broadway boasts one of the busiest, most vibrant corridors in the city. The street is packed with a healthy mix of retail and housing and is well used by many generations of cyclists and pedestrians. But Stockton Street is quickly surpassing its...
-
January 24, 2012Life After Redevelopment by Gabriel Metcalf, Executive DirectorRedevelopment as we’ve known it really is dead in California. On December 20, the California Supreme Court upheld the legislature’s elimination of redevelopment agencies — and struck down the option for the agencies to pay back a portion of their funding to continue to exist.This outcome represents the worst-case scenario for supporters of redevelopment. I for one was surprised, having spent all of 2011 working with various coalitions to reform, rather than eliminate,...
Blog RSS Feed