THE CITY'S FUTURE STARTS HERE

For nearly 50 years, SPUR has worked with community members to find solutions to some of San Francisco's toughest urban problems. And while we have helped the region prosper, every day brings still bigger challenges and more work to be done.

As we head into our next 50 years of service to San Francisco, SPUR is proposing its most innovative solution yet: constructing an urban center-the first of its kind in any city west of Chicago. To reach this goal, SPUR is embarking on the $14 million SPUR Campaign for the Urban Center.

The new facility will enable SPUR to:

• Engage more community members in the democratic process. Engaging under-resourced neighborhood communities will help foster economic growth, improved public transportation, increased access to affordable housing, and stronger civic participation and community involvement;

• Be the most reliable informational resource for public policy and urban planning. Educational programs will work to demystify urban planning and public policy making them relevant to everyday life;

• Become part of an international information-sharing network. A brain trust such as this will inevitably help prevent, and better prepare for, disasters such as the recent devastation in New Orleans-a situation with ramifications for both planners and policy-makers;

• Create a more informed public dialogue on public policy and urban planning issues.Improve the quality of debate at public hearings with the goal of creating a climate that is amenable to the adoption and implementation of intelligent ideas; and

• Increase revenue and build an endowment with the goal of becoming a fully self-sustaining organization.