Model Places Illustration

Housing

We believe: Housing is a human right and should be affordable to everyone.

Our Goals

• Increase the supply of housing.

• Provide more affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents.

• Protect low-income communities of color from displacement.

Monte Vista Gardens apartments in San José

SPUR Report

Structured for Success

A key cause of California’s high housing costs is its decentralized and fragmented housing governance system. SPUR makes 11 recommendations to set California and the Bay Area on the path to produce the housing we need.
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photo of balconies on an apartment building

Research

Losing Ground

SPUR examines how the Bay Area’s housing market has become shaped by scarcity and wide economic divides — not only among income groups but also among races and ethnicities.
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Apartment Building

Research

Housing the Middle

SPUR digs into the housing market’s failure to meet the needs of middle-income households. California can look to innovative programs across the country as models for how to address the state’s housing challenges.
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Apartment Construction

Research

Planning by Ballot

SPUR has created the most up-to-date database of local land use ballot measures that impact housing production in California. Over the long term, measures that restrict infill housing can undermine housing affordability and have the potential to exacerbate racial segregation.
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Updates and Events

Arcade Fire's new album tackles suburban sprawl, providing compelling city planning commentary

News /
Sprawl, conformity, car culture, ennui, decay. These are a few of the themes Arcade Fire tackles in its third album, The Suburbs, released last week. At times nostalgic and at times cautionary, The Suburbs may be most notable (certainly in the realm of SPUR's blog) as an example of city planning commentary in pop culture. As an NPR review put it, "the members of…

Growing on Our Buildings

News /
Some of the first calculations of the benefits of green roofs are coming back and they're even better than expected: replacing typical roofing materials with plants across a city the size of Detroit would be the equivalent of removing the pollution of 10,000 SUVs in a year. This study is the first to measure the amount of carbon that could be captured by the extensive…

Financing Affordable Rental Housing

Urbanist Article
The desire of President Obama’s new administration and leaders in Congress to undertake serious steps to stem global warming may provide a singular opportunity to make more visible the role rental housing can play in making our country’s infrastructure greener.

The Cost to Build and Buy Housing in San Francisco

Urbanist Article
San Francisco, one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, was more than double the California median price in the first quarter and more than 350 percent above the national average.

The Bay Area Housing Market

Urbanist Article
In the face of spiking foreclosure rates, plummeting home values and slow sales, what will draw investors back to the housing market? How will the risk in the housing market be re-priced to attract new capital?

Bunkers of the Recession

News /
To the litany of statistics bearing out the severity of this recession, add one more: the number of Americans who moved between March 2008 and March 2009 was just 35.2 million, the lowest total in 47 years – and back in 1962, there were 120 million fewer Americans. Such relative stability might be viewed as a good thing for neighborhoods besieged by foreclosures, or…
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