SPUR Publications

Two weeks ago the great parade of cars covered in the white desert dust returned from Black Rock City, Nevada, Burning Man's annual week-long home. Along with the many tales, burners brought back news of next year's theme: Metropolis: the life of cities. Besides celebrating Black Rock City's own urban elements--a population of 40-50,000 people with (temporary) homes on lots within blocks; a system of…

This summer, somewhere in California, the state Energy Commission denied an application for a new urban natural gas-burning power plant, citing that urban solar (PV) might be a better alternative. The CEC said that new "peakers" were not obviously the most cost-effective or environmentally preferable option to close that city's energy reliability gap. For years, SPUR and a loose coalition of environmental advocates, led by…

Last Friday, we teamed up with the San Francisco Great Streets Project and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition to participate in 2009 PARK(ing) Day, an event-cum-social movement started by Rebar in 2005. Before the big day, architect and SFBC volunteer Riyad Ghannam spent countless hours in the Urban Center's basement designing and building wooden platforms to create a seamless transition between the sidewalk and…

New York Times columnist Allison Arieff penned a piece yesterday on the temporary parks and open spaces sprouting up in San Francisco and New York City--and the opportunity for land owners (in this soft economy) to lend their empty lots to grassroots greeners. This image, from Arieff's column, shows the site of one of San Francisco's newest temporary plaza at the intersection of…

Last month, AIA San Francisco, CEOs for Cities, GOOD Magazine and SPUR issued a "call for problems" to a handful of city leaders, and asked six up-and-coming designers to develop responses and present them at an evening forum later this month. The challenges we got ranged from improving public schools, to designing a more welcoming storefront for the Ferry Building, to coming up with…

Maureen Futtner of the San Francisco Examiner asks SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf about the trajectory of his career (from SPUR intern to Executive Director), the role of optimisim in affecting social change and his thoughts on what makes a great city leader.

Twenty years after Loma Prieta, are we better prepared for our next big earthquake? A new website takes a grassroots approach to the question.

Transportation-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the fastest growing source of emissions in the U.S., and are currently responsible for almost 30% of the nation's total GHG output. A new ULI report, Moving Cooler, presents different strategies for making our transportation systems more sustainable. It proposes nine categories for improvement, including pricing/taxes, land use and smart growth, transit improvements, ridesharing, intelligent systems, and more…

Should you be driving on the highway in rural northwest Norway keep your eyes peeled for more than just the natural beauty. The Norwegian national road agency is in the midst of a $1.6 billion project that attempts to lure tourists to this often over-looked area by highlighting the landscape with architecture--in the shape of viewpoints, rest stops, benches, winding foot bridges and stairs leading…

NRDC has just released a guide to SB 375, the nation's first legislation to link transportation and land use planning with global warming. The goal of this legislation is to foster development patterns that reduce the need to drive. Household transportation is the single largest and fastest-growing source of global warming pollution in California. SB 375 will also help save money for households and…

Our friends at the Sightline Institute in Cascadia have put together a primer on the federal climate bill, aka the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), aka Waxman-Markey, that passed the U.S. House of Representatives late last week. Cap and Trade 101 features what you need to know about cap and trade, pollution auctioning, offsets, and why national climate legislation is good for families. …

Times Square has under gone a transformation lately, with lounge chairs replacing traffic and conversations replacing honking taxis. This coned-off chunk off Broadway is one of a number of experiments with public space happening around the city. New York City's Department of Transportation is trying out various spots to see where roads currently set aside for traffic could be turned over to pedestrian and bikes …

Earlier this month, after ten years of advocacy from neighbors, activists and artists alike, the first of three sections of New York's High Line park opened for visitors. The 1.45 mile-long park is situated on a defunct 19th century elevated train track that used to carry cattle into the Meatpacking District, but had been left standing since 1980, when nature adopted it, and turned it…

We spend much of our days with a roof over our heads, but rarely think of how roof exteriors could be so much more than just a weather shield. The growing urban rooftop farming movement just may change that. An article in today's New York Times describes how the green roof movement and the healthy food movement are converging. City policies can play a role…

The UK Guardian recently reported from beleaguered Flint, Mich., on a new plan to shrink the city by actually bulldozing unused buildings and neighborhoods. The idea is to concentrate the dwindling population and city services into a smaller area, or as Detroit has envisioned, many smaller urban centers separated by "forests and meadows". This proposal is apparently attracting the attention of the Obama administration. Is…

In an interview with DC Velocity, Norm Mineta, President Bush's Secretary of Transportation and a Democrat from San Jose, provides some fantastic insight into the challenge facing our new DOT chief. Mineta stresses the increasing inadequacy of the federal gas tax. Set at 18 cents per gallon since 1993, total receipts have decreased with inflation and improved fuel economy. The federal transportation account is deeply…

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