Local Resilience

How San Francisco is leading U.S. cities in the fight to restore federal funding and legal protection for affordable housing, health services, transit infrastructure, public safety, environmental protection and more.

As federal funding and other societal supports the Bay Area relies on are disappearing, how are local leaders and organizations stepping up to fill the gaps, rethink resourcing, support their communities, and move important projects forward? We asked 10 local leaders how they’re collaborating with their communities to meet today’s challenges.

As federal support recedes and budget deficits deepen, local governments must change how they work to build community resilience.

Rather than let BART, Muni, Caltrain, and AC Transit collapse, hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents put two transit funding measures on the November 2026 ballot.

While the country is backsliding toward fossil fuels, the Bay Area is pressing ahead with efforts to go all-electric.

As federal housing subsidies shrink and cities face escalating budget pressures, Bay Area communities must figure out how to continue building housing. Even before the decline in federal funding, most California counties and cities were falling short of their goals for building new affordable and market-rate housing. To meet its state-mandated affordable housing obligations, San Francisco’s budget and legislative analyst says the city needs $17.9 billion — an amount exceeding its entire annual budget for all priorities. While identifying new revenue sources remains important, it can’t be the only strategy. Policymakers must not only generate new funding but also reduce the cost of building housing. When the current economic situation makes even market-rate housing infeasible to build, lowering construction costs becomes a resilience strategy. Hard costs — the tangible, direct expenses associated with the physical construction of a building — make up an increasing share of housing project budgets and are rising faster than inflation, depressing construction of all housing types. That means any hard cost reductions will support affordable, mixed-income, and market-rate projects alike. One way to lower hard costs is to leverage innovative construction technologies, such as factory-built and modular housing, while eliminating regulatory red tape that stymies their widespread deployment.

Empowering trusted community centers to provide neighborhood resilience before, during, and after climate-related disasters

Lydia Tan joined SPUR’s board of directors in 2005 and today serves as our board chair. A real estate professional, she consults on organizational development and transformational urban redevelopment projects and is chief real estate officer for the Oakland Roots, a purpose-based professional soccer team.

National architecture, engineering, and design firm HGA pursues low-carbon, mixed-use buildings with positive community connections. It rejoined SPUR this year as a Guardian member.