Photo of Muni bus driving down Geary in SF

Taking Muni's Vitals

Data show the agency performs well compared with peers across the country

Illustration of a crane stacking cargo containers that say "sound fiscal policy," "structural change" and "economic growth"

Balancing Oakland's Budget

Closing the city’s structural deficit to move toward fiscal solvency and economic growth

photo looking down San Francisco's Market Street toward downtown

Reinventing Downtown

A new model to revitalize San Francisco’s urban center

photo of San Francisco with orange skies from wildfire smoke in September 2020

Shared Risk, Shared Resilience

New governance structures for community wildfire resilience

Building storefronts in downtown San Jose

Getting In on the Ground Floor

Activation strategies for downtown San José

photo of San Francisco City Hall with a construction crane in the foreground

Charter for Change

Empowering San Francisco’s government through charter reform

San José City Council Should Embrace a New Vision for Coyote Valley

News / November 10, 2021

San José is on the cusp of deepening its commitment to growing up, rather than out. The city has a unique and critical opportunity to concentrate growth within its existing urbanized areas rather than sprawling further. But it will miss a critical opportunity unless the City Council accepts the recommendations of the Planning Department and the Envision San José 2040 General Plan Four Year Review Task Force related to Coyote Valley.

Bridging the Gap

SPUR Report / November 4, 2021

The Bay Area’s current system for collecting unpaid bridge tolls hurts hundreds of thousands of people across the region. This system disproportionately harms lower-income and working people by relying on punitive tools like fines, fees and car registration holds to promote toll payment. SPUR recommends steps to reduce the harms caused by the unpaid tolls system and begin to move toward an equitable tolling system.

Integrating Food Into Healthcare

Policy Brief / November 1, 2021

California is in the midst of overhauling its Medicaid program to better serve the 12 million low-income residents who rely on it for health care. This report explores the state’s capacity to provide one key aspect of the plan: medically supportive food and nutrition interventions such as food pharmacies, produce prescriptions, healthy groceries and medically tailored meals designed to prevent, reverse and treat chronic health conditions.

Does the Bay Area Have the Water It Needs to Grow?

News / November 1, 2021

Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a drought emergency, salmon are on the brink of extinction and rivers are choked with toxic algae because too much water is diverted for farms and cities. Does the Bay Area really have enough water to continue to grow? We found that the answer is yes — if the region adopts comprehensive water efficiency measures and smart land-use planning.

rendering of proposed transit-oriented development at Oakland's Lake Merritt BART station

The Bay Area Won’t Meet Its Goals Without a New Transit-Oriented Development Policy

News / October 25, 2021

The crises that confronted the Bay Area before the COVID-19 pandemic have not gone away: inadequate and unaffordable housing, growing racial inequality and growing impacts from climate change. Building diverse communities with much more housing, services and jobs near transit is the best opportunity we have to tackle these challenges. The newly released Plan Bay Area 2050 charts a path to this future, but an outdated policy from 2005 is standing in the way.