SPUR Planning Policy Area

Planning

Our goal: Add new jobs and housing where they will support equity and sustainability, and make neighborhoods safe and welcoming to everyone.

SPUR’s Five-Year Priorities:

• Ensure that communities are safe, inclusive and equipped to meet all residents’ daily needs with a diverse mix of businesses and services.

• Prioritize investment in and access to parks, nature and public spaces as a driver for social cohesion and economic opportunity.

• Ensure that regionally significant neighborhood plans in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland advance equity, sustainability and prosperity.

 

Read our policy agenda

SPUR Report

Model Places

Over the next 50 years, the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to gain as many as 4 million people and 2 million jobs. In a region where a crushing housing shortage is already threatening quality of life, how can we welcome new residents and jobs without paving over green spaces or pushing out long-time community members?

SPUR Report

A Downtown for Everyone

Downtown Oakland is poised to take on a more important role in the region. But the future is not guaranteed. An economic boom could stall — or take off in a way that harms the city’s character, culture and diversity. How can downtown grow while providing benefits to all?

SPUR Report

The Future of Downtown San José

Downtown San José is the most walkable, transit-oriented place in the South Bay. But it needs more people. SPUR identifies six big ideas for achieving a more successful and active downtown.

SPUR Report

The Future of Downtown San Francisco

The movement of jobs to suburban office parks is as much of a threat to the environment as residential sprawl — if not a greater one. Our best strategy is to channel more job growth to existing centers, like transit-rich downtown San Francisco.

SPUR Report

Getting to Great Places

Silicon Valley, the most dynamic and innovative economic engine in the world, is not creating great urban places. Having grown around the automobile, the valley consists largely of lowslung office parks, surface parking and suburban tract homes. SPUR’s report Getting to Great Places diagnoses the impediments San José faces in creating excellent, walkable urban places and recommends changes in policy and practice that will help meet these goals.

SPUR Report

Secrets of San Francisco

Dozens of office buildings in San Francisco include privately owned public open spaces or “POPOS.” SPUR evaluates these spaces and lays out recommendations to improve existing POPOS and guide the development of new ones.

Updates and Events


Lessons from Wynwood: A Case Study on Urban Arts Districts

News /
Like San Jose’s South First Area, Miami’s Wynwood District leveraged the arts to transform an underutilized neighborhood into a successful mix of galleries, nightclubs and restaurants. Today rising rents risk driving away the very artists that made Wynwood such a unique and attractive place. As large-scale development comes to downtown San Jose and SoFA, what lessons can the city learn from Wynwood’s story?

Member Profile: Josué García

Urbanist Article
Josué García first emigrated to the U.S. from Durango, Mexico in 1983, and has spent a career as a tireless advocate for workers in the building and construction trades. Today he is chief executive officer for the Santa Clara and San Benito County Building and Construction Trades Council and was recently appointed vice president for the State Building and Construction Trades Council for Northern California.

Urban Field Notes: Kinky Streets

Urbanist Article
San Franciscans love their views to the far distance: to the ocean, the bay or the hills, to the Ferry Building or Twin Peaks. But the author's favorite San Francisco vistas are closer in, along the kinky, misaligned streets meeting at the Market Street backbone, where the FiDi north grid and the SOMA south grid meet in wonderfully inconvenient ways.

San Jose’s Urban Ambitions Coming to Life

Urbanist Article
Plans for Google to develop almost 8 million square feet of office space near Diridon Station coincide with a massive growth spurt in the city. If a significant amount of new jobs are concentrated in the station area, Diridon can become a major economic engine for San Jose and the South Bay.

Development (Finally) Comes to Oakland

Urbanist Article
6,675 residential housing units are under construction — a huge jump from the 765 that were built in 2014. This represents the biggest residential building boom in Oakland since the post-World War II era and is a dramatic turnaround for a city that saw a modest population decline in the first decade of this century.