Jeff Tumlin spells out 10 lessons San Francisco can learn from Portland -- from providing free transit in the downtown area, to supplying street furniture to improving walkability.

Portland's successful public art program demonstrates that something impractical can also be purposeful. In the case of Portland's program, the wide ranging public art programs bring together the community, place, and planning.

The article describes the statewide context for successful regional planning in Portland, Oregon and how the city and its downtown in particular was able to benefit.

Gabriel Metcalf compares Portland's City Club and their research processes to SPUR's, discussing the varying roles the organizations play within their local governments and communities.

What can San Francisco do to improve voter participation?

A summary of the hidden costs of driving -- including air pollution, accident damages, congestion time and road maintenance costs, and the larger public policy implications for San Francisco.

Six years ago Mission Bay was home to a trailer park and the sprawling half-empty Port of San Francisco Maintenance Facility. The bridges linking the empty lots to the north to the empty lots to the south were seismic hazards. Today this 300-acre former railyard is being converted into a new UCSF campus, 6,000 homes and millions of square feet of commercial space.

The chance to build Mission Bay with sustainable buildings is a rare opportunity, but some developers are missing out. This article discusses the greener features of the redevelopment plan.

A review of architecture and urban design at Mission Bay reveals that its projects have attracted good architects and landscape architects, but the results so far are generally less than stellar.

San Francisco's contracting process is inefficient and confused; amongst other things, SPUR recommends consolidating administrative processing and decentralizing implementation for departments capable of managing it.

Eco City, San Francisco

SPUR addresses Muni’s deficit, proposing to boost revenues by increasing the speed of boarding, reducing waits at lights, improving transit stop spacing, and favoring primary transit corridors.

SPUR’s review of CEQA found that after the law’s 30-plus years of operation, developments are environmentally worse than before. We need to change the way CEQA is applied in urban settings.

Since 1992, the Hope VI program has reshaped public housing in America’s cities. Rachael Peterson examines how this program has worked in San Francisco.

The article describes a new planning law in Oregon that reduces prior land use planning rules and gives more power to property rights and argues a similar measure is unlikely to pass in California.

San Francisco must face the problem of neglecting its capital investments as its physical foundation shows signs of deterioration.

The results of a Rincon Hill study commissioned by SPUR get us closer to understanding how high developer fees can go before making development infeasible.

This measure appeared on the November 2004 San Francisco ballot. What it does Proposition AA is a $980 million general obligation bond to pay for seismic safety improvements including strengthening tunnels, bridges, elevated structures, the Transbay Tube that runs under the San Francisco Bay, and other components of the BART system including the Muni Metro tunnels and stations between Embarcadero and West Portal stations…

This measure appeared on the November 2004 San Francisco ballot. What it does This is a companion measure to Proposition J, the proposed Transactions and Use Tax (sales tax) increase, which is also on the November ballot. Proposition O is a non-binding policy statement (i.e. it is purely advisory) recommending that the proposed one-quarter of one percent increase in the sales tax, if approved…

This measure appeared on the November 2004 San Francisco ballot. What it does This measure is a policy statement that reads in its entirety: "It is the Policy of the people of the City and County of San Francisco that: The Federal government should take immediate steps to end the U.S. occupation of Iraq and bring our troops safely home now."Why it is…