Housing developers in San Francisco are currently required to provide a minimum amount of parking in new buildings. What if we eliminated those requirements? Then we’d see both lowered housing prices and more efficient use of urban land. Requiring parking brings too many new cars into the city, congesting streets, taking up space needed for more housing and harming the environment.

Cities and states are proposing policies that would discourage driving by charging for some the costs it imposes on others — namely congestion, pollution, heart and respiratory disease, greenhouse gases and deaths from collisions. It won’t be easy to start pricing something that’s been free for so long. To get the benefits without a backlash, SPUR offers six principles for fair and effective transportation pricing.

Earlier this year, SPUR began planning its first ever regional strategy for the Bay Area, an aspirational vision of what the region could be like in the year 2070 and a roadmap for getting there. Here’s what participants in three community workshops shared about their values and vision for the region for the next half century.

San Francisco is running out of funds to build affordable housing, and the city will need to make changes quickly to fix the problem. How did this happen and what can be done? A combination of rising construction costs and new requirements is slowing down new development and curtailing incoming fees. SPUR has five suggestions for how to address the problem before it gets worse.

Major plans for new jobs, housing, BART and high-speed rail connections will reshape San Jose’s urban core. Amid this planned growth, the city has an opportunity to capitalize on one of its most treasured resources, the Guadalupe River Park. Denver's River Mile plan — a proposal to transform a downtown riverfront — offers lessons for turning an underused natural resource into an urban attraction.