When Google proposed a new vision for retrofitting its Mountain View campus as a dense and walkable urban place, the city embraced the plan — but balked at Google’s request to include housing. Increasingly, we are seeing expressions of the urban future of work through specific proposals by companies interested in retrofitting the suburban corporate campus rather than moving into cities.

In July, Congress passed a rare piece of bipartisan legislation to fund surface transportation for two years. “Moving Ahead for Progress for the 21st Century” (MAP-21) provided $105 billion for the next two years to fund road repairs, mass transit and other critical repair and expansion projects. Members of both parties were quick to congratulate themselves on MAP-21, while the Department of Transportation announcement hailed it as “a milestone for the U.S. economy and the nation’s surface transportation program.” But while they did manage to forestall the immediate crisis, they shouldn’t have been so quick to pop the champagne corks.

After years of underbuilding, new housing and commercial construction is booming in San Francisco. Years of work on neighborhood plans and rezoning are paying off as new construction targets transit-served areas and neighborhoods that support greater residential density.

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's current water and sewer rate structure is drawing to a close, and a new multi-year rate study is in progress. SPUR offer recommendations to create a more equitable system, in which ratepayers become responsible for the impact their properties have on sewer infrastructure and the environment.

Regulated, informal, sometimes illicit, sidewalk businesses and vendors bring vitality and life to urban cities, especially at the pedestrian scale.

The power of visual communication lies in its ability to convey urban ideas and the impact — for better or worse — those ideas have had on urban communities and discourses.

The City of San Jose is considering new planing requriements for new development to encourage mode-share shifts to biking, walking and use of transit. SPUR has studied this topic extensively and is very supportive of these goals. We offer several categories of comments from strengthening the revised requirements.