photo looking down San Francisco's Market Street toward downtown

Reinventing Downtown

A new model to revitalize San Francisco’s urban center

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

Shared Risk, Shared Resilience

New governance structures for community wildfire resilience

Transit funding rally at San Francisco City Hall

The SPUR Impact Report

What we got done in 2025

Building storefronts in downtown San Jose

Getting In on the Ground Floor

Activation strategies for downtown San José

photo of San Francisco City Hall with a construction crane in the foreground

Charter for Change

Empowering San Francisco’s government through charter reform

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

Grow. Eat. Compost. Repeat.

Urbanist Article /
The Bay Area’s food system supports our greenbelt, employs hundreds of thousands of people, and helps reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The region has an opportunity to capture more of these benefits.

Fixing Transit in SF's Northeast Neighborhoods

News /
How would you improve the transit system for neighborhoods in the northeast part of San Francisco? This was the key question SPUR asked at a transit planning workshop for the city’s northeast neighborhoods last month. The workshop brought together representatives from key public agencies, North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf businesses, the tourism industry and neighborhood advocacy groups, as well as transportation professionals. Neighborhoods in Chinatown…

San Francisco Gets Its First Eco-District

News /
Over the last year, there’s been palpable buzz in San Francisco around eco-districts — sustainability plans that operate at the neighborhood scale. After studying models in Portland, Seattle, Brooklyn and Denver, the city has kicked off a planning process for its first eco-district. The project will target the Central Corridor, the 24-square-block area south of Market Street currently undergoing a neighborhood planning and rezoning process.

What You Need to Know About Plan Bay Area

News /
SPUR has written several times about the development of Plan Bay Area since the planning process was kicked off a few years ago. Last month, the draft of the plan was finally released. What are the highlights in this 158-page plan and the accompanying 1,300-page environmental impact report? This post provides a summary of the draft and some of its key points.

Can SF’s Transportation Task Force Point the Way Forward?

News /
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee has selected SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf to co-chair his 2030 Transportation Task Force. Like other task forces the mayor has convened, this one will tackle a seemingly intractable problem: transportation funding.