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.

Japan’s extensive railway system carries nearly 30 percent of all rail passengers in the world, more than all of Europe. But unlike many European countries, Japanese rail companies are privatized. The largest of these companies carries 17 million passengers per day and its $26 billion in annual revenue includes no government subsidies. How is this possible and what can California learn from the Japanese system?

Since leaving her native New Zealand at 21, Kay Flavell has led a nomadic academic life, teaching 18th-century German literature at University College London, collecting oral histories in Liverpool and serving as associate director of the UC Davis Humanities Institute. Today, Flavell is the director of New Pacific Studio, a small multi-disciplinary artist residency program based in Vallejo.

Seen from a tall building, Tokyo’s vast scale is apparent, a largely undifferentiated metropolis to the horizon. But on the ground level, variegated towers on tight lots make for a rich and dynamic texture. Though the city hosts some magnificent architecture, many of the buildings are mundane or downright ugly. The urbanism, however, is exuberant and alive.

Transportation isn’t as predictable as one might think. The profession's standard forecasts and projections are convenient fictions that oversimplify a complex system and mislead us into thinking we know what the future will bring. Luckily, some transportation agencies are now publicly admitting uncertainty about where things might be headed in the future and are embracing new ways to tackle that uncertainty in their planning.

Cedric Brown first got interested in cities as a young boy, when his grandmother took him along on errands in downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Today, he works closely on initiatives with SPUR in his role as chief of community engagement for the Kapor Center, an organization working to demystify the tech sector by removing barriers to entry.

Letter providing comments on Metropolitan Transportation Commission's Resolution No. 3914, Revised, which would allocate $10.1 million in bridge toll funds to the Tri-Valley-San Joaquin Valley Regional Rail Authority.

Letter commenting on budget mitigation options proposed by Valley Transit Authority's Ad Hoc Fiscal Stabilization Committee.

SPUR board member Tim Steele is senior vice president of real estate development at the Sobrato Organization, where he works on the design, entitling and construction of real estate development projects. He started out as a commercial broker, then went to work with the Hayward Redevelopment Agency and the San Jose Office of Economic Development before joining the Sobrato Organization.

This report, the first product of the SPUR Regional Strategy, uses a scenario planning process to look at four uncertainties that the Bay Area will contend with over the next 50 years: the economy, housing, transportation and the physical form that growth takes. The resulting scenarios serve as “myths of the future,” stories that reveal the potential long-term outcomes of choices the region makes today.