Issue 547

Walk! Run! Ride! Jump!

Transforming St. James Park

Creating a strategy to bring St. James Park to life through innovative governance and stewardship.

San Jose was determined not to let St. James Park, the challenged two-block green space in the north of downtown, turned into a neglected urban space. For the St. James Park project, SPUR worked with MJM Management Group, a public-space management firm, to assess the issues and opportunities and assemble case studies on urban parks management from around the country.

Cracking the Code on Urban Design

If you plan cities for people and places, you get people and places. Excerpted from SPUR's report "Cracking the Code"

SPUR examines the zoning code in San Jose and other West Coast cities with the goal of identifying opportunities for San Jose to up its urban design game.

Urban Field Notes: Architecture on the Defensive

Exploring the ways cities limit the ways people can use their public spaces.

At a time when many of our cities are becoming enamored with creating spaces that promote health, happiness and well being, the presence of defensive architecture — or, those ubiquitous elements in public spaces that deter people from sitting or sleeping — is uncomfortably contradictory.

Member Profile: Margie O'Driscoll

The former head of San Francisco's American Institute of Architects is passionate about making the city's built environment better.

The former head of San Francisco's American Institute of Architects is passionate about making the city's built environment better.