Balancing Oakland's Budget
Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth
Zoning's Next Century
Urbanist Article / Last year, zoning turned 100. What will the next century bring? We invited planners, architects, journalists, economists and others to weigh in: What should change? What should remain? Will we, as New Urbanist Andres Duany suggests, look forward to the day zoning no longer exists at all?
How Is Oakland Doing on Its Affordable Housing Goals?
News / The rate of increase in rents and home sale prices may have slowed, but Oakland still has the fourth highest rents in the nation, and housing remains unaffordable to too many. In 2016, the city set high goals for addressing the housing shortage — but how much progress has been made since then?
Why California’s New Transportation Bill Is a Really Big, Historic Deal
News / Senate Bill 1, the state transportation funding bill passed by the Legislature this month, represents a monumental win for California and the Bay Area. Not only does it solve big problems for cities and transit agencies across the state, it shows that California can raise significant funding for transportation in an era of dwindling federal resources.
Why Central SoMa Needs to Focus on Jobs, Even in a Housing Shortage
News / San Francisco will soon adopt the Central SoMa Plan, the city’s only current major neighborhood plan. In the 230-acre area, the plan changes the zoning to allow 45,000 jobs and 7,500 housing units. Considering the housing shortage, shouldn’t there be more focus on housing in the city’s only active neighborhood plan? Not necessarily. Here are five reasons we think the plan gets the mix right.
Rethinking the Corporate Campus
SPUR Report / Technology has become the lifeblood of the San Francisco Bay Area economy, but the office environments where this work takes place do not reflect the innovation occurring within. The traditional suburban corporate campus reinforces dependence on cars and pushes sprawl development into open spaces and farmland. How do we create a more efficient, sustainable and high-performing model for the Bay Area workplace?