February 2020
Feb
19
Wed
San Francisco
The Embarcadero Enhancement Project
12:30 p.m.
After years of advocacy and planning, a new physically protected, two-way bikeway is being designed on the water side of the Embarcadero. The project will not only result in a safer place to ride but will also reduce conflicts with pedestrians on the existing shared-use promenade. But what about the interactions with pedestrians at loading zones and intersections? And how can the bikeway encourage safety while still being inviting for a variety of users? Come learn about emerging best practices for the design and accessibility of these types of bikeways and how they are being integrated into plans for the Embarcadero.
Feb
19
Wed
San Jose
Understanding How Women Travel
6:00 p.m.
“Understanding How Women Travel” is a groundbreaking study completed by LA Metro in 2019. The study included a creative approach to better understand women’s mobility in LA county; framed by core social justice principles and methods, including both traditional and non-traditional data collection methods to effectively capture “hard-to-reach” populations and embody the project’s intersectional approach to gender. This comprehensive and innovative study and its findings have laid the foundation for bridging the gender equity gap for Metro’s current and future female riders. The panelists will discuss the background, research approaches and methods, key takeaways from the study, and applicability to other agencies and studies. Presented by San Jose State University Institute for Metropolitan Studies.
Feb
20
Thu
San Francisco
High-Speed Rail's New Draft Business Plan
12:30 p.m.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is required to prepare, publish, adopt and submit a business plan to the state legislature every two years. These plans provide updates and outlines for California’s eagerly anticipated new rail project, including milestones, forecasts and funding sources. Come learn about the 2020 updated business plan and the progress that’s been made since 2018 toward achieving the vision of fast rail service throughout California.
Feb
20
Thu
San Francisco
The Post-Retail City
2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Planners have long accepted that ground-floor retail is critical to an active and healthy street life. But what happens when we’re faced with an evolution in retail shopping, including a decline in traditional retail stores? A new advanced research studio at California College of the Arts (CCA) is utilizing the abundance of retail vacancies to critique deeply held assumptions, speculate on alternative futures for the “post-retail street” and catalyze a radical rethinking of what the ground floor of the city could be. Join a cross section of urban actors and thinkers in an interactive workshop to examine the future of ground-floor commercial space after the so-called retail apocalypse. Co-presented by CCA.
Feb
20
Thu
Oakland
The Nature of Space and Place in Our City
6:00 p.m.
How can behavioral and social scientists help us create more human-centered cities? Environmental psychology and urban sociology are both interdisciplinary fields that rely on a mélange of sciences in an attempt to solve the problems that exist in the environments around us. Join two experts in these fields, the authors of the books The Shaping of Us and The Help-Yourself City, as they discuss the nature of space and place and how looking at our cities with this dual lens can enable us to better understand our interactions with the built environment and our neighbors who live within it.
Feb
25
Tue
San Jose
How Well is Your Community Doing?
12:30 p.m.
How can San Jose do the most for its communities with the resources it has? What indicators should it consider to guide those decisions? To help answer these questions, San Jose has developed the Social Progress Index, a new tool to catalyze and facilitate community discussions about how to improve the city. Seeking to examine issues such as whether people have adequate housing and education and who is being excluded from opportunity, the tool looks beyond the typical measures of...
Feb
25
Tue
San Jose
CANCELED: City Trivia Night 14
6:00 p.m.
The much-loved City Trivia Night is back at SPUR! Six themed rounds of searing questions relating to cities, architecture, urban planning and policy make this event the ultimate showcase of urbanist talent and planning geekery. Bring your own team of six or join up with other urbanists at the event to compete for the crown and prizes.
Feb
26
Wed
San Jose
Small Farms, Big Potential
12:30 p.m.
Small farms provide the lifeblood of much of our region’s food system, providing amazing produce, meat and dairy to wholesale buyers, restaurants, farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture boxes. But these farms, some of which are mere acres in size, are threatened by encroaching development, especially in Santa Clara County. A new report by the Santa Clara County Food System Alliance, Small Farms, Big Potential, offers an in-depth look at small-scale agriculture viability in the South Bay. Come hear more about their findings and what you can do in support.
Feb
27
Thu
San Jose
Vision Zero San Jose
12:30 p.m.
After Swedish Parliament passed the original “Vision Zero” policy in 1997 the country began to rethink how its residents travel, believing that loss of life was not an acceptable price to pay for mobility. In the more than 20 years since, they’ve seen vehicle-related fatalities plummet and the policy adopted by cities around the world. San Jose adopted Vision Zero in 2015 beginning its own initiative to eliminate deaths and severe injuries on our roadways. Five years later, how effective has the process been and where does it go from here?
Feb
27
Thu
San Francisco
Civic Engagement Through Food
6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
In times when we feel overwhelmed by our political process, how can we use our collective energies and gathering places to galvanize the food movement for larger systems change? And how can we best nourish ourselves and our neighbors, while fighting for the causes we care about? Eaters, voters, and good food advocates can shift the political culture in this country by going beyond voting with our forks to taking action in our communities. Join CUESA and SPUR for a conversation with two community leaders who, through their work in food, have pounded the pavement, knocked on doors, driven policy change, and organized to help people claim their power. Learn from their first-hand experience overcoming challenges, and discover tangible ways you can get involved in 2020 and beyond.
Feb
29
Sat
San Francisco
BEDLAM
2:00 p.m.
In the wake of decades of de-institutionalization in which half a million psychiatric hospital beds have been lost, our jails and prisons have become America’s largest mental institutions. Emergency rooms provide the only refuge for severely mentally ill who need care. Psychiatric patients are held captive and warehoused in overcrowded jails as untrained and under-equipped first-responders are on the front lines. At least half the people shot and killed by police each year have mental health problems, with communities of color disproportionately impacted. The mentally ill take to the streets for survival, existing in encampments under our freeways and along our streets, doing whatever it takes to stay alive. This crisis can no longer be ignored. Through intimate stories of patients, families, and medical providers, BEDLAM immerses us in the national crisis surrounding care of the severely mentally ill. Filmed over five years, the documentary brings us inside one of America’s busiest psychiatric emergency rooms, into jails, and to the homes – and homeless encampments – of mentally ill members of our communities. Presented by the San Francisco Jewish Film Institute as part of WinterFest 2020.
March 2020
Mar
4
Wed
San Francisco
2020 San Francisco Good Government Awards
5:30 p.m.
For the past 40 years, the Good Government Awards have recognized outstanding job performance by those serving the City and County of San Francisco. This is a unique opportunity to acknowledge the city's top managers for their leadership, vision and ability to make a difference in city government and the community at large.
GOOD GOVERNMENT AWARDS 2020
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4, 2020
Mar
20
Fri
San Jose
SPUR Impact Awards
11:30 a.m.
The SPUR Impact Awards acknowledge outstanding impact by public sector employees in city and county government in Santa Clara County. The awards honor those who are making a difference in government and the community at large in the areas of housing, transportation, placemaking and urban design, and sustainability and resilience.
If, in order to participate in a SPUR event, you need auxiliary aids or services for a disability (e.g., qualified interpreter, qualified reader, written materials, taped texts) please submit your request five business days before the event to publicprograms@spur.org or 415-781-8726 x132. SPUR will work with you in identifying effective auxiliary aids or services that it can provide. If you need to cancel your request, please notify SPUR at least two business days before the event.