Earlier this year, SPUR began planning its first ever regional strategy for the Bay Area, an aspirational vision of what the region could be like in the year 2070 and a roadmap for getting there. Here’s what participants in three community workshops shared about their values and vision for the region for the next half century.
San Francisco is running out of funds to build affordable housing, and the city will need to make changes quickly to fix the problem. How did this happen and what can be done? A combination of rising construction costs and new requirements is slowing down new development and curtailing incoming fees. SPUR has five suggestions for how to address the problem before it gets worse.
Major plans for new jobs, housing, BART and high-speed rail connections will reshape San Jose’s urban core. Amid this planned growth, the city has an opportunity to capitalize on one of its most treasured resources, the Guadalupe River Park. Denver's River Mile plan — a proposal to transform a downtown riverfront — offers lessons for turning an underused natural resource into an urban attraction.
In his final public address, outgoing SPUR President and CEO Gabriel Metcalf shared his reflections on where the Bay Area has been and where it's going. To end our housing crisis and transportation woes, he argued, our reluctant metropolis must embrace its role as a world city and economic center.
SPUR's recent study trip to Tokyo made even the most avid urbanists on our staff and board feel like country mice. Because Tokyo is so different, it’s easy for Americans to disregard it as a source of ideas for our own urban areas. But there’s a lot that the cities of the Bay Area can learn from the most populous metropolitan region on earth.