Laws that require new buildings to provide a minimum number of parking spaces are undermining California’s investment in affordable housing, public transit and environmental resiliency. A recent SPUR Digital Discourse discussed the state’s role in mitigating the over-parking crisis.
Incoming Oakland Director Ronak Davé Okoye shares her goals and vision for SPUR’s work in Oakland. Through a participatory process that allows a cross-section of people to imagine and develop ideas together, we can get to better outcomes for Oaklanders: more housing across income and type, authentic relationships between residents and the public and private sectors, responsive systems, shared prosperity.
For years now, research has shown that healthy food incentive programs, like SPUR’s Double Up Food Bucks, improve health. What new research shows, in a more comprehensive way than ever before, is that healthy food incentive programs also improve community wealth.
SPUR’s Bigger Picture series proposes ideas for key locations in San Francisco, San José and Oakland. Each provides an opportunity to tackle major regional challenges through local planning processes. Our first report looks at the western side of downtown San José, where a major rail station expansion, a park re-envisioning process and a record number of proposed developments are signaling big changes for the neighborhood.
Alameda County correctional facilities spend more than $20 million annually on food, but until recently there was no way to evaluate whether these purchases lived up to county’s values. This changed last month, when the Alameda County Board of Supervisors approved the Good Food Purchasing policy to see how well their food purchasing supports a healthy, local, sustainable and fair food supply chain.