People walking in San Jose's San Pedro Square

The SPUR Annual Report

Learn about our impact

new multifamily housing under construction

Permitting Progress

How charter reform can help San Francisco speed delivery of housing, transit, new businesses, and more

Photo of Muni bus driving down Geary in SF

Taking Muni's Vitals

Data show the agency performs well compared with peers across the country

Illustration of a crane stacking cargo containers that say "sound fiscal policy," "structural change" and "economic growth"

Balancing Oakland's Budget

Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth

photo of San Francisco with orange skies from wildfire smoke in September 2020

Shared Risk, Shared Resilience

New governance structures for community wildfire resilience

Building storefronts in downtown San Jose

Getting In on the Ground Floor

Activation strategies for downtown San José

SPUR to SF Supervisors: Don't Let the Next Google Get Away

News /
While the Bay Area is still climbing out of the great recession, we’re simultaneously experiencing the makings of a second dot-com boom. The Chronicle reports that tech jobs have climbed near to their year 2000 peak of 34,116. Silicon Valley is hiring again. And so is San Francisco. Between Twitter, Zynga, Yelp, Salesforce and others in social media, gaming and cloud computing, a growing sector…

Seattle Planning Director Marshall Foster at SPUR

News /
Known for its quality of life and access to nature, Seattle has long prided itself on refusing to be “world class.” But rapid growth and a diversifying population mean Seattle is changing — whether it wants to or not. Booming biotech, software and gaming sectors are transforming the economy, new light rail and streetcar lines are expanding, and the city is about to reclaim…

Defining Good Government in the New Reality

Urbanist Article /
Costs of City government are rising while revenues are stagnating. Meanwhile, our need for core services has not decreased. What began as a national recession may have triggered a rare moment of opportunity to deal with the causes of our structural deficit. So what is the way forward?

Public Input Summaries from the First Open House and Workshop

News /
At our open house and workshop on January 15th, we presented a series of presentation boards as well as a range of different ways to provide feedback, from questionnaires to collages. After transcribing all of the public comments, the project team created an overview of public input, posted below along with a detailed record of all comments. In the coming months, the…

2010: The Year in Urbanism

Urbanist Article /
With this issue, we're kicking off the new year — and a new tradition — at SPUR. More confident in our ability to assess the present than predict the future, we've taken a stab at naming the biggest trends and events affecting urban planning in the Bay Area right now. Write to [email protected] with your own list!