Balancing Oakland's Budget
Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth
San José City Council Should Embrace a New Vision for Coyote Valley
News / San José is on the cusp of deepening its commitment to growing up, rather than out. The city has a unique and critical opportunity to concentrate growth within its existing urbanized areas rather than sprawling further. But it will miss a critical opportunity unless the City Council accepts the recommendations of the Planning Department and the Envision San José 2040 General Plan Four Year Review Task Force related to Coyote Valley.
Bridging the Gap
SPUR Report / The Bay Area’s current system for collecting unpaid bridge tolls hurts hundreds of thousands of people across the region . This system disproportionately harms lower-income and working people by relying on punitive tools like fines, fees and car registration holds to promote toll payment. SPUR recommends steps to reduce the harms caused by the unpaid tolls system and begin to move toward an equitable tolling system.
Integrating Food Into Healthcare
Policy Brief / California is in the midst of overhauling its Medicaid program to better serve the 12 million low-income residents who rely on it for health care. This report explores the state’s capacity to provide one key aspect of the plan: medically supportive food and nutrition interventions such as food pharmacies, produce prescriptions, healthy groceries and medically tailored meals designed to prevent, reverse and treat chronic health conditions.
Does the Bay Area Have the Water It Needs to Grow?
News / Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a drought emergency, salmon are on the brink of extinction and rivers are choked with toxic algae because too much water is diverted for farms and cities. Does the Bay Area really have enough water to continue to grow? We found that the answer is yes — if the region adopts comprehensive water efficiency measures and smart land-use planning.
The Bay Area Won’t Meet Its Goals Without a New Transit-Oriented Development Policy
News / The crises that confronted the Bay Area before the COVID-19 pandemic have not gone away: inadequate and unaffordable housing, growing racial inequality and growing impacts from climate change. Building diverse communities with much more housing, services and jobs near transit is the best opportunity we have to tackle these challenges. The newly released Plan Bay Area 2050 charts a path to this future, but an outdated policy from 2005 is standing in the way.