Metropolitan areas have had a difficult year, navigating concurrent crises from rolling out mass vaccination campaigns, reckoning with impacts of systemic racism and addressing climate change — all while preparing for challenges such as impending evictions and the uncertainty of what the future of work will be. SPUR, Chicago’s Metropolitan Planning Council and New York’s Regional Planning Association believe that there is one urgent priority our federal government can address to help cities jump start their recovery: investing in infrastructure.

Laws that require new buildings to provide a minimum number of parking spaces are undermining California’s investment in affordable housing, public transit and environmental resiliency. A recent SPUR Digital Discourse discussed the state’s role in mitigating the over-parking crisis.

Incoming Oakland Director Ronak Davé Okoye shares her goals and vision for SPUR’s work in Oakland. Through a participatory process that allows a cross-section of people to imagine and develop ideas together, we can get to better outcomes for Oaklanders: more housing across income and type, authentic relationships between residents and the public and private sectors, responsive systems, shared prosperity.

For years now, research has shown that healthy food incentive programs, like SPUR’s Double Up Food Bucks, improve health. What new research shows, in a more comprehensive way than ever before, is that healthy food incentive programs also improve community wealth.