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 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

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

The Last Time We Tried to Fix Muni

Urbanist Article /
Brad Paul interprets an interview of John Kirkwood, author of a 1973 SPUR report, "Building a New Muni," just prior to the eventual approval of a charter amendment to reform Muni by creating the SFMTA.

Interview: John Jacobs

Urbanist Article /
SPUR's deep involvement with city planning issues, while guiding SPUR's expansion into new policy areas of city management, finance, and the democratic decision-making process. He has an intimate knowledge of the dynamics of change in San Francisco during the 1970s, from the founding of the GGNRA, to the effects of Proposition 13, to the continuing transformation of San Francisco's economic base. In February of this…

Interview: John Hirten

Urbanist Article /
In January of 1999 SPUR's deputy director, Gabriel Metcalf, interviewed John Hirten to talk about the first decade of SPUR's existence and, more specifically, about urban renewal. As SPUR's first executive director, John Hirten was a national spokesman for enhancing our cities, through the federal urban renewal movement, and was one of the key actors behind San Francisco's programs. This candid interview between two generations…

An Interview With Dorothy Erskine

Urbanist Article /
While the world has changed a great deal in the last 40 years, and SPUR along with it, certain remarkable individuals had a prescience about the core values that make a difference. One such person was Dorothy Erskine (1896-1982), a founder of both SPUR and Greenbelt Alliance, and a key participant in a wide variety of civic planning activities. Were she here today, we would…