Oakland, San Francisco, and San José are exploring how cultural districts can mitigate the economic and social impacts of office vacancies and reduced foot traffic in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Successful examples from Boston, Cleveland, Denver, and Philadelphia show how place-based cultural strategies can reactivate struggling neighborhoods to support businesses, create jobs, and make communities more resilient.

In December, the City of Oakland adopted a resolution directing the Planning & Building Department to launch a Study of a citywide non-ductile concrete building retrofit program - including draft retrofit standards, compliance timelines, and a review of at-risk buildings. SPUR drafted this letter in support of the resolution. We will remain engaged in this effort as it moves forward.

The San Francisco office of international architecture and design firm Perkins&Will has been a SPUR business member since the 1950s and is active in both SPUR’s Urban Infrastructure Council and its Planning and Architecture Council. Regional Practice Leader of Higher Education Anders Carpenter spoke to us about how the firm is thinking differently to deliver buildings that are light on environmental impact and strong on community contribution.

Silas Amaral serves as Director of Strategy, Partnerships, and Impact at the Sunday Friends Foundation in San José, where he is launching an entrepreneurship accelerator for family businesses run by Latin and Vietnamese immigrants. A lawyer from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who changed careers when he moved to San Francisco, Silas feels a deep connection to newcomers forging their path in the Bay Area. We talked with him about the role of entrepreneurship in community transformation.

Last year, the City of San José formed the GovAI Coalition, a collaborative effort to develop responsible AI policies and practices for local governments. In a short time, the coalition has grown to more than 800 members representing 300-plus local governments across the country. SPUR talked with San José City Privacy Officer Albert Gehami to learn more about the benefits of taking a collaborative approach.

Fifty-five years after California passed a body of law to supply housing for people at all income levels in every jurisdiction, San Francisco still struggles with housing affordability and exhibits patterns of racial segregation. The city has begun changing exclusionary, single-family zoning patterns to favor lower-cost, multifamily buildings. SPUR is spearheading policy and advocacy work to ensure the city adopts a transformational rezoning.

In 2023, California adopted SB 272, which requires Bay Area jurisdictions on the shoreline to develop sea level rise adaptation plans as part of a regionally coordinated approach managed by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). To launch this effort, BCDC spent the passed year working with regional stakeholders to develop the Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan (RSAP). The RSAP was recently opened for public comment and many local stakeholders submitted comment letters to guide the future of this document. SPUR signed this Joint Statement in partnership with dozens of environmental, climate action, and environmental justice advocates and community-based organizations to ask BCDC to uphold its leadership in this effort by maintaining the integrity of the RSAP, resisting efforts to weaken its Standards, and addressing the remaining gaps described above and detailed at greater length in previous letters during the public comment period.

SPUR has long advocated for a robust, well-coordinated transit system as an essential part of an equitable, sustainable, and prosperous region. So, how are we reimagining the future of Bay Area transit, and our work, in a moment of uncertainty? First, we are more explicitly addressing the unknown with tools such as scenario planning. Second, we are refocusing on the aspects of the transit system over which operators and policymakers can exercise the greatest degree of control.

SPUR invited leaders and practitioners who work in our policy areas to answer the question: “How are you thinking differently in order to reimagine your work?” Our respondents talk about the shifts in mindset and approach that have been needed as they make progress on everything from workforce training to sea level rise adaptation.