A Daring 50-Year Vision for the San Francisco Bay Area

SPUR released an ambitious, colorful new Regional Strategy this week that sets a new standard for planning advocacy.

The results of three years of work includes policy research and analysis on housing, growth, economic justice, climate, and transportation—all supplemented with digital storytelling created by Art+Action in collaboration with Emotive Brand. At least 20 artists, designers, animators, and other creatives contributed to the report, according to the report's credits.

The entire SPUR Strategic Vision is organized into four "invitations": 1) Reimagine our housing policies; 2) Grow up, not out; 3) Close the racial wealth and well-being gap; and 4) Protect our region and all its inhabitants from climate change. A total of 25 reports comprise the entire SUPR Regional Plan.

As for the substance of the SPUR Regional Strategy, San Francisco Chronicle reporter J.K. Dineen offers this summary:

The Bay Area of 2070 would be a place where homeless encampments are a thing of the past. Builders would be allowed to construct three- or four-unit buildings in suburban single-family neighborhoods. Speculators would no longer be able to evict tenants in order to convert apartments to condos.

And new housing would not gobble up precious farm land in counties like San Joaquin or Contra Costa, but would be built mostly in five-story buildings in historic downtowns like Alameda, Fairfield, Mountain View, Pleasanton and Santa Rosa.

As Dineen explains, the Regional Strategy lays out a 50-year vision for the region, with 175 policy recommendations in all, touching "on everything from rent control to rapid bus lines to protecting against sea level rise."

"The SPUR reports compare two scenarios: 'business as usual,' based on current zoning and land-use patterns; and a 'new civic vision,' which imagines a more equitable and sustainable region with reformed land-use regulations," according to Dineen. The new civic vision referenced here is laid out in its own separate document available online.

The report plans for 4 million new residents in the Bay Area by 2070, and targets a need for 2.2 million new housing units. The "business as usual" land-use planning in place in the cities and counties comprising the region would likely produce 1.4 million housing units, explains Dineen, "and much of that would be put in the wrong places — farmland and open areas that are far from transit."

Dineen's article, linked below, includes a lot more detail on the differences between the business-as-usual approach and the new civic vision outlined by SPUR.