Balancing Oakland's Budget
Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth
A Bolder Vision for Downtown Oakland
News / After years of work, the City of Oakland is close to completing a specific plan for downtown Oakland. While the current draft is a great improvement over earlier drafts, SPUR believes that the plan needs to be more visionary and that it should encourage both jobs and housing — and put them in the right places.
Bringing Big Ideas to Life in San José
News / For San José, 2019 was a year of planning for the big ideas launched in 2018. The city made major progress on the policy analysis, planning processes and community dialogue needed to realize those visions, with some notable milestones.
We Are the Bay
Urbanist Article / As part of the SPUR Regional Strategy, we sent photographer Ryan Young out to meet his neighbors. Over the course of a week, Young traveled 2,000 miles north, south, east and west to capture images of residents in the Bay Area's many and varied communities.
It Takes a Village
Policy Brief / San Jose’s 2040 general plan proposed “urban villages” as a key strategy for sustainable growth. These higher-density, mixed-use urban places would concentrate new offices, stores and housing in locations accessible by transit, foot or bike. But only a handful of the 60 designated urban villages have projects underway. SPUR recommends strategies to remove barriers and successfully implement San Jose’s urban village vision.
Don’t Dismiss Transportation Pilot Projects: We Need More Wild Ideas
News / When cities and transit agencies pilot new kinds of services, the early ridership numbers are not always strong, leading many to dismiss the new ideas — and the agencies for trying them. But this skepticism undermines the purpose of pilots: to test new ways to get people out of their cars. Rather than pooh-poohing pilots, we should embrace them as a chance to learn.