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SPUR What can China teach us about growth? I I
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LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Dictatorship, democracy and urbanism
Gabriel Metcalf is SPUR'sexecutive director
2 Urbanist> August2011
Has any place experienced change as rapid as China's, growing from 26 to 50 percent urban in just 20 years - a shift of a half a billion people? The standard of livi ng has risen equally rapidly: Since 19 9 0 the country's gross domestic product has grown by more than tenfold. It might be possible to stop people from moving to cities in search of economic opportunity, but it would require a system far more authoritarian than contemp orary China. For example, there are 14 mill ion people in Shanghai w ith official permanentresident permits, but an additio nal 9 million migrants live in the municipal region and are partic ipating in its econom ic expansion. This year SPUR's annual city trip was to Shanghai. It was the first time we visited a city outside North America, and it afforded a glimpse into China's phenomenal urban grow th, the most significant urbanization project in hum an history. Shanghai is a modern city. It has high-rise towers, upscale retai l and restaurants, and a transportation infrastructure (trains, ports, airports, etc.) far better than anything in the United States. But outside of the historic districts built before World War II, the development appeared terribly disorganized to us. There is lots of transit and lots of development but no real relationship between the two. Development far away from transit is just as intense as developm ent close to transit. Add to this a tendency to copy some of the wo rst affectations of American cities and suburbs - extremely wide roads, towers surrounded by vast, empty lawns, elevated highways cutt ing through districts - and the result is a landsca pe that is profoundly un-walkable, in spite of being packed with tall buildings as far as the eye can see. On the SPUR trip, we called it "high-density sprawl." There are lots of reasons Chinese urbanization is turning out thi s way: 1. The grow th is so fast that they don't have time to plan. They just build as fast as they can, trying to make sure everyone has a place to live. 2. The officia l growth-management policy emphasizes "new tow ns" rather than directing growth into already urbanized areas of Shanghai. In a country that is experiencing th is much population growth, there can be no question that new town s are a necessary part of th e solutio n. But Shanghai could put more energy into growi ng its urban core. 3 . China is copying the America n model of car dependency. If cars are symbo ls of personal freedom,
I don't want to sound like one more star-struck American raving about the marvels of modern China. I am rooting for democracy. But our democracy is very, very troubled. imagine how powerful the symbo l is in a society struggling to move from a form of totalitarianism toward a more open and tolerant model. Shanghai has taken more aggressive steps to manage cars than most cities in China, but providing lots of traffic lanes and lots of parking is pushing greater Shanghai into a dispersed pattern. 4 . In Shanghai the subways are organized in a grid to facilitate one transfer to anyw here; there are almost no central nodes that would warrant the greatest concentration of density. 5 . Local government is funded by selling development rights and leasing property, while the natio nal government is fu nded by personal and business taxes. In order to pay for basic services, local government is deeply enmeshed in the business of land development. 6. Bureaucrats in charge of districts, tow ns or cities compete w ith each other to create major places. To get noticed and advance in their careers, mayors want to be responsible for a new dow ntown or a major rail hub. When a new mayor comes into office, he or she wants to make a mark with something new instead of implementing another mayor's vision; as a result the landscape is dotted with partly finished megadevelopments. In some ways, the political structure is the form-giver. Despite these problems, it's clear that Shanghai and China have a lot to teach us. First, the rising prosperity did not happen by accident. China has an industrial policy of identifying industries to target for growth. The job of Chinese mayors is to come up with a profitable mix of industry in their cities, and they w ill not get promoted unless they succeed. Mayors have many, many tools at their disposal to carry out this task, including directing state-owned companies
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At the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, an enormous scale model shows all exist ing and planned buildings in the city center about one-tenth of Shanghai's total area. and foreign investm ent companies to desired locations; creating new universities; and even buildin g th e factori es th ey want and starting new companies themselves. As we met w it h mayors of fast-growin g new town s, we heard sophist icated interpretations of th e "lessons of Detroit. " They talked about t he need to nurture industries that are furth er up th e value chain and not rely on manufa cturin g, w hich w ill flow to areas of least cost. For example Jiading, a new town specializing in auto manufacturin g, is wo rking to attract R&D and aff iliated industries - to design cars rather than just build th em. The second big lesson from China in general, and Shanghai in particular, is th at th e government is spending heavily on th e t hings the United States seems unable to affo rd anymore - especially transport ation infrastructur e and education. In the most respected international comparison of educational atta inment among high-school students (the Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development 's Programm e for International Student Assessment), Shanghai came out ahead of every ot her place in th e wo rld. People w ho think China's economic success is only based on cheap labor are drawin g th e w rong conclusion, and are, frankly, not as wo rried as they should be. The cost of labor in China w ill rise - in fact it already has. What is more challenging to th e U.S. economy is th e smart, and massive, investm ents China is making in its future productivity. W hen confronted w ith th e stories of China's successes - the grow ing prosperity, the new high-speed rail lines, the ability to move so quickly on infrastructure and other large proj ects - Americans tell th emselves, "It' s easier in a dictatorship." But let's give th e Chinese some credit: The results th ey are achieving for th eir people far outst rip those of any other dictatorship
I can think of. As I watc h California wade into a th ird decade of trying to build its first high- speed rail system, w it h, at best, more th an a decade more to go, I don't wa nt to sound like one more star-struck American raving about th e marvels of modern China. I am rooting for democracy. But our democracy is very, very troubled. This brings us to th e third and fin al lesson we took away -a nd it's a hard one. How does the Unit ed States compete w it h und emocratic countries w ithout sacrificing our democracy? Can a count ry w it h a rich publi c life and culture of debate still take on th e hard decisions? What if we continue to deny th at spending is necessary to maint ain first-world infrastructure and publi c services? W hat if we are too short-sighted as a people to invest in th e education and opportunity of th e next generation? What if, in short, our system is not capable of tacklin g hard problems? Many of China's mayors, th e ones directin g t heir nation's thr iving economy and building its supportive infrastructure, were trained as economists and engineers. If we can characterize China's politi cal system as governance by experts, then th e challenge it poses to us becomes even more clear. American politi cal culture is deeply distrustful of expert ise and deeply wed ded to t he idea t hat th e experts are probably w rong. This is w here China dictatorship or not - is more enlightened t han we are. We cast our lot w ith democracy; w ith buildin g a participatory citizenry th at combines all our strengths. But in order for it to wo rk, we must vote and act according to an intelligent, inform ed vision th at is bigger th an imm ediate self-interest. We have a lot of wo rk to do to prove that th ese hopes for our democracy are more th an naive w ishes.e
Urbanist > August 2011 3
August 2011 What we're doing
COASTAL COMMISSION RULES AGAINST OCEAN BEACH ARMORING On July 13, the California Coastal Commission unanimously denied a permit application from the City and County of San Francisco that would have permitted both existing and new emergency armoring of the coast in response to ongoing erosion south of Sloat Boulevard. The commissioners protested the ad-hoc nature of the city's coastal management and said they would not approve additional armoring until a long-range plan was in place. SPUR's Ben Grant provided testimony on the status of the Ocean Beach Master Plan, a multi-agency effort to find long-term solutions to erosion and other issues at the beach. The commission's demand for a long-range plan puts renewed emphasis on the SPU R-Ied master plan, which will be released in January. Read more at bit.ly/armoring. REDEVELOPMENT IS DEAD, LONG LIVE REDEVELOPMENT This year has been a wild one for Ca lifornia's redevelopment agencies, which direct financial investmentand new development toward struggl ing areas . Just a few months into his tenure, Governor Jerry Brown vowed to abolish redevelopment agencies and got fairly close to doing so. Now they're once aga in on the chopping block. When the governor signed the state budget in late June, he passed one trailer bill that eliminates 4 Urbanist> August 20lt
redeve lopment agencies and a second bill that allows them to continue to exist if they pay certain "voluntary" contributions to schools and special districts. The Ca lifornia Redevelopment Association and the League of Cal ifornia Cities assert that the new laws are unconstitutional and are taking a lawsuit to the Ca lifornia Supreme Court. Under the new laws, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency would continue to stay in business , but some of its projects (like the Hunter's Point Shipyard) would
go forward on a slower timeline, and others may not happen at all. SP UR has been working as part of a broad coalition to support targeted reforms to state redevelopment law, while at the same time working on new tools that can replace some of the good work that redevelopment does in California. Hear SF Redevelopment Agency Director Fred Blackwell explain the changes at bit.ly/sfredev.
MAYOR APPOINTS GABRIEL METCALF TO TRANSBAY JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY Mayor Lee has appointed SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf to the organ ization responsib le for designing and building the Tra nsbay Term inal. It's a critical time for this project, given recent funding challenges facing Caltrain, high-speed rail and the Transbay Redevelopment Area .
THE FUTURE OF 4TH STREET The stretch of 4th Street between Market Street and the San Francisco Caltrain station at King Street is an important area for urbanists to be thinking about. Why? Because rough ly $1.5 billion will be invested in transit infrastructure here, in the form of the Central Subway. This project will ultimately link the T-Third Street Muni line with Chinatown. Meanwhile, other significant plans will extend Caltrain to downtown and further link the 4th and King Station to the Transbay Terminal with high-speed rail. Recently the San Francisco Planning Department
launched the Central Corridor Study, a new planningeffort focused on the 4th Street corridor. SPUR believes strongly that plans for 4th Street should consider the substantia l transit improvements in this area, as well as the need to extend San Francisco's walkable downtown core. To get involved email Sarah Karlinsky at skarlinsky@ spur.org
SUPPORTIVE HOUSING FOR YOUTH PASSES PLANNING COMMISSION The San Francisco Plann ing Comm ission voted July 14 to pass the proposed plan for the Edward II Inn in the Cow Hollow neighborhood. The plan would convert the tourist hostel into a 24-unit residence for youth who are aging out of foster care or are otherwise at risk of homelessness. SPUR Deputy Director Sa rah Karlinsky testified in support of the project, which our Project Review Comm ittee has endorsed as critical to addressing the needs of an underserved population.
SPUR RELEASES "ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT" STUDY In July SPUR teamed with the Global Footprint Network, a research group based in Oa kland, to release a study of San Fra ncisco's "ecological footprint," a measure of natural resource consum ption as a function of goods and services purchased. Read the complete study at spur.org/tootprint.e
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Learning from Shanghai What can China's massive urbanization project teach us?
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China is now engaged in the fastest city-building project in history. One billion people will live in its cities by 2030. By 2025, China will have 221 cities with more than a million inhabitants and 23 cities with more than five million.
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Shanghai, China's largest city, is ahead of the urbanization curve and provides a glimpse into the country's future - and the world's. For just as the American suburban experiment traveled around the world in the 20th century, Chinese urbanism will be adopted and adapted by other nations in the 21st.
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Urbanist > August 20tt 5
08.11
by Egan Terp lan
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Shanghai's regional economy In China, decisions about new towns, indu stries and financial centers are mad e at a regional level. What can th e Bay Area learn from t his ap proac h to economic planning?
EganTerpla nis SPUR's regio nal planningdirector.
I PreparingforChina's Urban Billion, McKinsey Global lnstilute, March 2009. wW\'/.mckinsey. com/mgi/reports/pdfsl china urban billionl China- urban- billion full_reporl.pdf -
6 Urbanist > August2011
Shanghai is the pin nacle of Chinese economic development and a good reflection of where the entire country is headed if growth continues. The city is now middle-income and has a diversified service economy - and, despite wage growth, its per capita savings rate is decreasing as residents spend more money on housing, consumer goods and other services. The city produces 100,000 college graduates per year and nearly 30 percent of its residents have a college degree (double the rate of a decade ago)' . And though the region maintains a strong, globally competitive manufacturing base (building products like the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge), the economy is shifting away from export-oriented manufacturing and toward high-end services like finance, technology and business services. Several of the sites SPUR visited were adaptive reuses of manufacturing spaces, including a former auto parts factory that now houses the Shanghai office of architecture firm SOM , among other businesses, and an art deco slaughterhouse currently occupied by several arts orga nizations. These economic changes are giving rise to greater income inequality, rising housing costs, longer commutes and increased car-ownership rates. There are also more than 8 million migrants from rural China who lack official papers to work in Shanghai yet still need jobs and housing. Maintaining an economy that produces jobs for the masses while simultaneously increasing per capita incomes and moving local industries to higher-value activities (which are often less labor-intensive) is a delicate and risky balancing act. But this process is made easier by the fact that Shanghai is not just a city but a region, with a mayor who presides over all of the various districts within it. This makes regional coordination much more effective, as it occurs within a single governmental jurisdiction. To better understand economic development in Shanghai and draw lessons for the Bay Area, let's look at recent changes in two distinct parts of the
Shanghai region: Jiading and Pudong. Jiading is a "new town" (a master-planned city built from scratch in a previously undeveloped area) 20 miles from the center of Shanghai with a focus on the automotive industry. It is one of nine new towns in the Shanghai area, each planned for a population of 800 ,000 to 1 million. Pudong, the eastern district of Shanghai, was designated a national economic zone in 1990 and is renowned for the futuristic skyscrapers in its Lujiazui District, which lies directly across the river from Shanghai's famous early-20th-century promenade, the Bund, To put these two districts in a Bay Area context, Jiading would be like building a totally new city of 1 million people in the Livermore Valley, with its own district mayor accountable to a regional mayor. Pudong's Lujiazui District would be as if the U.S. government decided to make the former naval station at Alameda Point into the country's leading financial center and created a free-trade zone there with tens of millions of square feet of office space while preserving downtown San Francisco as a quaint, historic employment and retail center.
JIADING: DE CENTRALI ZING GROWTH TO "N EW TOWN S" Once a relatively undeveloped area of farms and small villages, Jiading has been transformed in the past decade with new office and residential towers, factories, schools, parks and roads. As a designated "new town," Jiading reflects Shanghai's policy of decentralization, shifting new population growth and existing industry away from the region's city center (which will remain at 10 million people). Much new growth will be distributed to nine new towns of up to 1 million people, as well as 60 smaller cities of approximately 100,000 people. With an economic focus as Shanghai's "Automotive City," Jiading is the largest automotive district in China. Home to the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, which partners with Volkswagen and General Motors, Jiading manufactures hundreds of thousands of cars each
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year. Low taxes are key to t his success. Profit taxes are as low as 15 percent for firms that use new technology, establish an R&D facility or are th e regional headquarters for a global company. But in an att empt to avoid th e fate of U.S. manufactur ing centers like Detroit, Jiading's district mayor, Sun Jiwei, says th e new town is moving away from a narrow manufactur ing emphasis to embrace "upstream" activit ies (like research and design) and "down stream" activities (like marketing and testing) and capture the broad value chain of the automotive industry. In addition to the assembly plants, Jiading has att racted more th an 100 ,000 related companies in industries such as compo nents manufacturin g, logistics and afte rsales services. Its big att ract ion in dow nstream activities was the building of a Formul a 1 race track. Jiading's next strategy is to move upstream to capture auto research and design firms as we ll as those in related sectors like industrial design, electronics, informa tion technology and electric car batteries. Jiading's focus on cars reflects a national st rategy to decoup le fut ure growt h from exports. Since the global economy is slowing, China increasingly has to rely on its internal markets for futur e grow th. While cars provide an engine for job growt h, it is real estate development - led and managed by local government - th at provides the funds to offe r th e lucrative tax breaks. The government, w hich owns all property, sells developm ent rights and then requires developers to sign long-term leases: 70 years for residential, 50 years for industrial and 40
years for commercial. These stable annual revenues fill local government coffe rs and provide the funds for a range of investments, f rom infrastructur e to government-run companies to tax breaks for private fir ms. As noted above, real estate developm ent is oft en the means to an end, w hich is to meet a target for gross domestic product (GOP). Each level of government contributes tow ard national, provincial and local GOP goals. Local off icials (most of wh om are trained as engineers or economi sts) must meet th ese targets or risk losing th eir jobs. This provides strong motivation for an effective economic development strategy.
PUDONG'S LUJIAZUI DISTRICT: RECLAIMING SHANGHAI'S STATUS AS A GLOBAL FINANCIAL CENTER In th e early 20th century, Shanghai was th e world's third-largest finan cial center afte r New York and London. But afte r the Chinese Revolut ion, fin ancial services ceased to be a major indust ry in Shanghai. Today, Pudong reflects the city's - and country's - desire for Shanghai to reclaim a global role in finance and w rest le the regional title away from Hong Kong. In 19 9 0 , the national government declared much of the land east of the Huangpu River the Shanghai Pudong New Zone. Firms that locate th ere pay no duti es or income taxes, and (since 2001) foreign compan ies can open financial institutions that use th e local currency, th e renminbi. The area houses the Shanghai stock exchange, wh ich comprises W ith new tow ns like Jiading, th e Chinese government is shift ing popu lation grow th and existing industry away from Shanghai's city center. Like muc h contem porary Chinese urbanism, th e plan for Jiading emp hasizes wide boulevards, mega blocks and towers set back from the street.
Urbanist > August 2011 7
Inspired by La Defense in Paris and other monumental districts, Pudong emerged out of agricultur al land to become th e nation's financ ial center and home to millions.
Cushman and Wakefield, Ql 2011. httpJ/rightsite.asia/
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B Urhanist > August 2011
87 percent of China's national stock market. As a result , Shanghai receives about a quarter of the entire country's fin ancial-services investm ent. Pudong currently has more than 12 million square feet of Class A off ice space - more th an half of all such space in Shanghai - and an additiona l 5 mill ion square feet is under construction ." The success of Pudong reflects Shanghai's shift toward a service economy. In 19 9 0 , 60 percent of Shanghai's employment was in manuf acturin g, 38 percent in services and th e rest in agriculture. By 20 05 t his had reversed: Services now make up 60 percent of the Shanghai region's economy and as much as 75 percent of the economy in th e city center. Pudong also reflects the national government's belief in urbanization and infrastru ctur e development as t he best ways to achieve GOP grow th. Pudong has th e region's international airpor t , major port facilities and the world's only com mercially operating Maglev train . (The train is mostly a disa ppointment , however, in that it was intended to link to th e city center but in fact terminates at a distant edge of Pudong, w here travelers sti ll have to t ransfer to taxis or th e metro.) Infrastructure in Shanghai has averaged approximate ly 10 percent of GOP dur ing th e past decade .
CO NC LUD ING LESSON S If Shanghai reflects China's success at economic grow th, w hat lessons can we app ly to the Bay Area? Given obvious diff erences in our cultures and governme nts, mak ing compa risons is risky, but a few lessons emerge: 1. Because th e majo rity of the region is under th e jur isdiction of one governme ntal entity, Shanghai municipali ty, there is consensus for w here to locate and how to support targeted industries such as fin ance and automotive. This means overall regional economic grow th can happen much faster. 2 . Local offi cials' career success is measured by their ability to meet regiona l targets, such as increasing t he GOP. This provides a strong motivatio n to develop and implement an econom ic strategy th at actually works. The struggling Bay Area economy could benefit from a regionally drafted economic strategy and elected offi cials willing to support grow th where it best serves the region (even if that means some places get greater focus than others). Our government is not going to set GOP targets for all elected off icials, but perhaps we could use more local leaders w ith the political fort itude and regional perspective to support w hat is best for the entire Bay Area, not just for their ow n community.â&#x20AC;˘
08.11
by Michae l A lexander
TRANSPORTATION
Learning from a world-class transit system Can Shanghai's vast new network of high-tech subwa ys and high -sp eed trains trump its growing love affair with th e car?
Shanghai is China's urban showcase, and transportation is one of its showpieces of scope, scale and speed. A decade ago, the city had one subway line. Today it has a grid of 11, covering 260 miles and averaging more than 5 million passenger trips a day. By 2020 all those numbers will double. Shanghai is also a hub for the world's largest high-speed rail network. After just three years of construction, the 820 -mile Beijing- Shanghai bullet line opened in June - right on schedule. A yea r after Shanghai's World Expo, the city's sprucing for that impress-the-world event was still evident. Still, public transit is planned for the long term, and most is world class. It's the only way to serve the transportation demands of a stillgrowing megacity of 23 million at an acceptable energycost - and it's a strident contrast to the shortsighted decision-making that hobbles most U.S. transportation policy.
by distance: A single trip costs between 45 cents and $1.10, and Metro says it recovers 80 percent of operating costs from fares. (BART receives 65 percent of its operating budget from fares, the best recovery rate in the Bay Area.) Meanwhile, Shanghai has not neglected its bus system. Up at street level a thousand bus lines await, the biggest network in the world.
Michael Alexander isanurbanist and co-c hair of SPUR's AdvisoryCouncil. Heencourages San Franciscotoshare thesuccesses of cities like Shanghai andVancouver, B.C.
H IGH -SPEED RAIL
Shanghai is a hub of China's rapidly expanding high-speed rail (HSR) lines, which were bought from manufacturers around the world. As part of the deals, China required technology transfer, so now it can build and operate its own systems - as well as others in places like Brazil. The new Beijing-Shanghai bullet line, which cuts the nearly lO-hour travel time in half, expects to carry some 220,000 passengers a day. At peak, trains leave every five minutes. It's the latest addition to the world's largest HSR network, RID ING TH E METRO If a trip on a brand-n ew subway in a foreign city, covering more than 5,000 miles today - and to an unfamiliar destination, is navigation's acid test, double that by 2020. Shanghai's rapid-transit system, the Metro, passes. HSR is planned, financed and run by the Its spotless, functional stations, with their staffed government, which accelerated construction during service counters, feel comfortable. All signs and the 2008 recession. In a country where nearly instructions are in English and Chinese. Platform a billion people don't have toilets, authorities monitors displayarrival times of the next three trains justify such premium-cost (though still subsidized) - to the second. Navigating the vast underground passenger travel as making China more competitive stations is easy, even when transferring between in the long term, creating jobs (110,000 for Beijinglines. Above each platform a color-coded graphic Shanghai) in the short term and freeing older rail for indicates which station you're in (red), where the more profitable freight. The government claims HSR train is headed (black) and where it's been (gray). reduces urban sprawl by linking urban centers that On the train, there are next-station displays, and have connecting subway lines, but if those subways newer cars have LED route maps above the doors. go to distant, expensive and lightly populated suburbs - as do some of Shanghai's - that benefit Ticketing, which always requires the most passenger decisions, is just as seamless. Just find is muted. From 2000 to 2006, national officials debated your destination station and its line on the ticket whether to use magnetic levitation technology or machine's touchscreen map, and pay with cash steel rail for the national passenger system. Maglev or cred it card. Touch your plastic ticket to the gate reader, and go. Use your added-value ticket on lost. Shanghai's Maglev line takes seven minutes taxis, buses and ferries. Like BART, Metro charges to run 19 miles from Pudong International Airport Urbanist > August2011 9
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to downtown, but weak connections at both ends make a taxi trip just as fast door-to-door. It's more a legacy demonstration project, like the Disneyland monorail. There's another rail anomaly in one of Shanghai's new towns, Lingang, at Shanghai's coastal tip. Designed by the German firm gmp, the town is overscaled, autocentric and quite empty today. But it has a critical function: It's the logistics center for the world's largest deep-water port, Yangshan, out in the mists of the East China Sea . Oddly, Lingang and Yangshan are linked across the shallows only by the 20-mile-long Donghai Bridge, not by rail, which means that millions of cargo containers must be carried by trucks.
TO TOO OR NOT TO TOO Despite the government's clear focus on building transit, there is no explicit goal to concentrate development directly adjacent to stations. But because densities are so high, the lack of transitoriented development may not matter much. There
10 Urbanist > August 2011
is in fact lots of transit near new development. One place where Shanghai planners are actively connecting transit with a plan for deve lopment is Hongqiao International Airport, 10 miles west of downtown. Abutting the passenger terminal is a rail station with 30 tracks for high-speed trains; two (soon to be three) subway lines to downtown, one of which continues to Pudong International Airport; four expressways; acres of taxis; and a planned extension of the Maglev from Pudong. It's a great intermodal center, but will the empty, hazy fields surrounding it really be filled with the planned 6 million square meters (65 million square feet) of transit-oriented development? One SPUR member with extensive experience in China observed that "6 million square meters" is always the target number for such big projects.
AUTO FIX-ATION China juggles an industrial policy to grow its automotive industry (as in the new town of Jiading, see "Shanghai's regional economy," page 6) with
contrast ing environmental and transportation/ urban growth policies. "Capitalism w ith Chinese characteristics " may enable top- down planning of public wo rks, but it also supports th e bottom-up aspiration s of the new mid dle class to own a home and a car. An industrial policy th at encourages an autom obile industry has significant benefits: th e industry is a major consumer of dom estically produced steel, rubber, plastics and electronics; a foundation for aeronautics, space and defense industries; a source of industrial innovation and good jobs to feed Asia's largest auto market, w hich grew 10 percent annually w hile Detroit tanked. Status car: Aud i A4 . Superstatus car: Ferrari, w hich sells more than half of its output in China. One evening we passed the same Ferrari multiple tim es (always in first gear) as we strolled through the French Concession, but Shanghai, w ith an estimated 1.7 million cars, isn't as gridlocked as notorious Beijing. One reason: If you want to actua lly drive your new status symbol, you must w in one of th e month ly auctions for a license plate. Just 8 ,000 plates are offe red each month, and w inning bids top $6 ,000. No Shanghai plate? Traffi c police and highway toll statio ns will stop you from driving during rush hours. Beijing recently cop ied the strategy. Shanghai takes its highway strategy largely from North America: There's an extensive freeway network consisting of three ring roads and a grid of expressways spaced roughly every seven miles. Most are elevated, and limit ed to cars and trucks.
hour. A few years ago, bicyclin g was considered a symbol of poverty, and Shanghai wanted to ban bikes on streets to make room for mo re cars. Now t he city is starting a bike-sharing program modeled on the one in Hangzhou, the wor ld's largest, and Pudong off icials ju st announced plans to create a separate pedestrian and bicycle street network over the next five years. Despite Shanghai's flat topography, about half th e bikes have electric motors. W hile gas engines are prohibited, the electrics have t heir own down sides - most electricity come s from burn ing coal, and shodd y battery facto ries poison nearby residents and worke rs w ith lead. Now if China could ju st translate some of its transit success to greater environmental protection .•
GROUND TRANSIT: CHINA VS. THE UNITED STATES On June 30, China opened an 820 -mile highspeed rail (HSR) line from Shanghai to Beijing. The trip ta kes five hours. A trip of the same dista nce in the United States - New York to Atlanta takes 18 hours on Amtrak. Wh ile we struggle to break ground on th e first HSR line in the United States, China is hard at work on a lO ,OOO-mile HSR system t hat will cover a nation the same geograph ic size as ours in just nine years. What are we missing out on? High-speed rail slashes travel time between urban centers, reduces pollution and oil dependency, and provides a foundation for future economic competitiveness. The benefits become stark when you compare a trip on China's HSR to current ground travel in the United States.
PEDES TRIA NS AND BICYC LES Walking and cycling remain impor tant parts of th e transportation system. Streets are fill ed w ith pedestrians. The biggest shopping street is closed to cars; others have w ide sidewalks shaded by plane and camphor trees (festively uplighted at night) that make warm, humid, smoggy Shanghai wa lkable and comfortable. For the 20 10 Expo, Shanghai transform ed th e Huangpu River water front along the historic Bund district, much as San Francisco did w hen it removed the Embarcadero Freeway. Shanghai tunn eled six of the intim idating 10 lanes of riverfront road, narrow ing the surface roadway and expanding its pedestrian promenade into a major open space and public amenity w ith postcard views of the Pudong skyline across the river. There are still more than 10 mil lion registered bicycles in the city. Many streets have bike lanes separated from car traffic, and at all hours th ey're busier than San Francisco's Market Street at rush
How does a one-day, 220 -mile trip through three cities on China's HSR compare to the same length trip using American transportation options?
I
Carl
HSR I CHINA
Amt rak USA
Travel Time
1.4 hours
5 hours
4 hours
Average Speed
157 mph
44 mph
50 mph
Top Legal Speed
213 mph
62 mph
80 mph
Trip Cost per Mile
15¢ per mile
36¢ per mile
55 .5¢ per mile
USA
t
Dataderivedfrom current ticket prices and IRSmileage reimbursementrate. Compiled by Michael Painter.
Urbanist > Au gusl2011
11
1
I
0 8 .11
AT A GLANCE
Shanghai Municipality and the Bay Area The Shanghai Municipality includes 17 districts as well as the city center. At 23 million people and 2,450 square miles, it is more comparable to the Bay Area than to San Francisco. HOUSING BUILT PER YEAR 400,000 350000
en !::
z
300000
Vi
250000
:::J t.:l Z :::J
0
:I: l.L.
200000
0 0::: LiJ lD ~
:::J Z
150000 100000 50000 0
-
1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
HOW PEOPLE GET AROUND Bike 15%
SHANGHAI
Bike 1%
I
BAYAREA
12 Urbanist > August 2011
GEOGRAPHY AND POPULATION
SHANGHAI MUNICIPALITY
SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Shanghai city center population: 10 million Shanghai Municipality population : 23 million
San Francisco population: 805,000 Bay Area population : 7.35 million
GDP PER CAPITA
EDUCATION ATTAINMENT 100%
$80,000
90
Bay Area
80 60,000
70
US
60
40,000
20,000 .1
Shanghai
/
China
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
10
o
Less th an high school
High school
College
Sources: HOUSING BUILTPER YEAR Shanghai: Shanghai Statistical yearbook 2010. Bay Area: Associated Bay Area Governments, Housing Needs Plan, June 2008. HOW PEOPLE GET AROUND Shanghai: Rail Transit Impacts on Trip Making and Land Developent in Shanghai, China, Haixiao Pan and Ming Zhang, 2010. Bay Area: Metropolitan Transportation Commission, modeling analysis for Sustainable Communities Strategy, 2010. MAPS Courtesy SOM. GDP PER CAPITA Shanghai: Shanghai Statistical Yearbook, 2010. Bay Area : BEA Gross Regional Product. EDUCATION: Shanghai: Shanghai 2010 Census. Bay Area: US Census Bureau, 2008, American Community Survey.
Urbanist > Au gust 2011 13
0 8 .11
b y_Go n Price _ _rdo __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I_ S_T_R_E_E_T_L_I_F_E
_
1_ _ _ _ _1
Placemaking in the New and Old City Is Shanghai the city of the 21st century, like New York in the 20th century, Paris in the 19th and Florence in the 15th? Gordon Price, previouslya sixterm city cou ncillor inVancouver, is directorofthe City Program atSimon Fraser Universityand author ofthe blog Price Tags (WIVIV. pricetags.IVard press. com).
The Shanghainese have built an economic dynamo - and are proud of it. Last year's World Expo rivaled th e Beijin g Olympi cs in creating a transformative new infrastructure. As a region of 23 milli on spread over 2,45 0 square mil es, Shanghai can be vast and intimidating. But it is not a st range place, at least not for visitors from cit ies w it h 19th -centur y roots. Its historic center is still a we ll-scaled wa lking city w ith great transit, and it is safe, surprisingly green and serviceably bilin gual. Like Paris, Shanghai divid es into left and right banks historic Puxi and newly developed Pudong - separated by th e Huangpu River. Don't confuse th e w hole of Pudong with its Lujiazui district , a financial center of overwrou ght towers and overscaled avenues. Hard to pronounce, harder to wa lk. The best place to view Lujiazui is from th e other side of th e river, along th e newly rebuilt embankment of th e Bund ,
a stunning set piece of colonial classicism and one of th e wo rld's great urban promenades. This is w here th e British, French and Americans extracted land concessions in th e mid-1 9th century, th e best known of w hich is the French Concession. Behind th e Bund extends a rough grid of colonial arterials, now crisscrossed w ith elevated freeways. Surprisingly, th e new highways fit in pretty we ll, w it h their flower boxes, spectacular lightin g and accompanying greenways. All arterial roads are lined w ith shops, malls and commercial buildings; some, like Nanjin g and Huaihai roads, are among the most famous retail streets in Asia. The superblocks between the arterials were historically fill ed with /i/ongs, a traditional housing sty le th at is actually a blend of two cultures: British terrace row housing and Chinese courtyards.
_ _ __
The Bund 14 Urbanist > August 2011
_
_
_
_
"'"-
Lujiazui financial distri ct
... <i'
=
A Iilong between towers and highways
Tianzifang
People's Square
It's easy for Westerners to romanticize the Iilong without understanding what it's like to live in one. Associated with overcrowding and poverty, the Iilongs have been the target of demolition, replaced by "towers in the park," high-rise slabs all facing south, that may be brutal to our eyes but are a step up for many of their residents. As the low-rise Iilongs become an increasing rarity among the concrete canyons, we may see more careful restoration and adaptation of them along with the preservation of other examples of Shanghai's deco heritage from the 20th century. Shanghai already has two good examples to point to, most notably Xintiandi, which, with its rebuilt shikumen stone-gate houses, is now a trendy entertainment center for the affluent and international. Since its restoration, the less-altered lilong settlement of Tianzifang has become a popular and well-visited arts district where residents rent out the first floors of their homes to boutiques and bistros. Xintiandi - for which SPUR memberJohn Kriken was the master planner - has been so successful with its mix of heritage
buildings, corporate towers, high-end condos, all in a car-constrained environment, that slavish duplicates have been ordered up for other metro areas around China. Thanks to these examples of economically successful heritage preservation, Shanghai planners are able to use a combination of bureaucratic insistence and economic appeal to save the past and create sophisticated public spaces - as also demonstrated on Yong Foo Road, where the old British Consulate is now a private club and the centerpiece of a new pedestrian-priority district. The building known as "1933," a surreal abattoir transformed into an arts center; Bridge 8, a creative cluster in new and old industrial spaces; and the Knowledge and Innovation Community in Wujiaochang are just three examples among dozens that suggest a more creative vision of Shanghai's future. Meanwhile, extensive demolition has allowed the city to green up central Sha nghai with an astonishing number of parks and public places, including People's Square, once the colonial racetrack and now the major cultural and civic precinct. Urbanist > August 2011
15
Shanghai's main defect remains its air quality. Most days are gray, th e air filled w it h dust from inland deserts and unaddressed pollutants. Have Shanghai dwellers ever seen a star-filled sky? If not, perhaps th ey are compe nsat ing w it h manmad e nightti me lighting. Lumin ation covers ent ire high-rise facades on the Pudong side of the river, while the gold-satura ted displays of the Bund and Nanj ing Road attr act thousands on th e historic side. Where t he elevated freeways cross, the ramps are lined wi th blue LEDs; along Huaihai Road, th e crow ns of mature trees are ornamented wit h glow ing red lanterns. Shanghai air quality
Pudong at night
16 Urbanist > August 2011
Huaihai Road
Shanghai sidewalks accommodate many uses
Tree-lined street in the French Concession
Plaza outside the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum in Lujiazui
Away from t he primary prom enades, Shangha i's sidewalks have to accommoda te every imaginable use - and every imaginable small vehicle; seemingly th ey cannot cope. One would expect to be frazzled by overstimulation and th e claustrophobia of crowds. And yet, most of the tim e, one is not. Perhaps it's because of th e trees. Has the impa ct of st reet trees ever been more significant? The French Concession overflows w ith London plane trees. Cleverly, t he Chinese use th eir expressway rights-of-way as tree farms, growi ng the seedlings to a size w here they can be transplanted throughout the region. W hich leads to the question that jumps out when the tourist leaves the center of historic Shanghai for the new town s and developme nt areas: W hy have th e Chinese planners, and t heir international consultants, learned so littl e f rom th e success of these Shanghai traditi ons? The question arises again and again, on th e vast boulevards of Luji azui surrounded by desolate plazas; in the new towns, on avenues w ithout bike lanes; in a neoclassical college campus w itho ut apparent student life; or at the wor ld's largest skateboard park, whe re the only occupa nts are those watering the shrub bery. Some att ribute th is lack of energy and urban life to Shanghai's planning ahead to accommodate expected mill ions of residents. But too oft en th e scale feels wron g. It's not without precedent. The Parisians built La Defense, the Viennese designed Donau City - moderni st megaprojects that even their creators don't like. It's hard to und erstand wh y th e Chinese, scavenging the world for the best examples of urban design, wo uld choose these sterile models for some of their new town s. Shanghai mou nted a world's fair that washed itself in green, constructed 10 majo r transit lines simultaneously and filled its streets w ith greenery and its bike lanes w ith the latest electric technologies. Yet th e Shanghainese are saturating their urban environment w ith thousands of new cars, t rucks and buses, celebrat ing this achievement in car ads as t hey elevate the expectations of th e rising middle class. And so now they find th emselves in gridlock. W hy? Maybe because they believe t hey can solve the congest ion, energy and environmental problems afte r th ey catch up w it h us? Or simp ly because th ey believe this is th e way to build th e city of the 2 1st cent ury.â&#x20AC;˘
Shanghai traffic Urbanist > August20 11 17
0 8 .11
1
I INSIDE SPUR
New Faces at SPUR ..
Publications and communications manager Karen Steen oversees SPUR's print and online communications, including our policy reports, website, blog, member emails, social media and, of course, the Urbanist. A journalist specializing in architecture and urban planning, Karen has written for Metropolis, ReadyMade, 1.0 ., Time Out New York and the New York Times. Her book Crystal Cove Cottages (Chronicle Books), a profile of a historic community in Southern Ca lifornia, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. Karen comes to SPUR from CBS Interactive, where she helped launch the business news site BNET.com. Previously, she was an editor at Metropolis and at the Pulitzer-winning newspaper Willamette Week. A daily transit rider, she spends her commute writing fiction. She recently completed a novel on themes of land use and the environment thanks to her many hours logged on BART and AC Transit.
1 B Urbanist > August 2011
Eli Zigas, food systems and urban agriculture program manager, inaugurates a new policy area at SPUR. He will manage our work on urban agriculture, regional foodshed planning and creating a vibrant, accessible food system in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Eli has spent several years managing non-profit programs. He most recently co-founded Cultivate SF, an organization that explored the feasibility of commercial urban farming in San Francisco. Before that, he was program manager for DC Vote, an education and advocacy non-profit orga nization in Washington, D. C. In that capacity, he managed foundation and direct-mail fundraising and assisted with outreach programs. Prior to working for DC Vote, Eli was the communications manager for the Udall Legacy Bus Tour, a cross-country biodiesel bus tour promoting public service on environmental and Native American issues. A native of Washington, D.C., El i made his way to San Francisco via Iowa, where he earned his B.A. in policy studies from Grinnell College. He currently serves as a co-coordinator of the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance.
Cole Armstrong, a San Francisco native, has been an urban planning enthusiast since attending his first SPUR event at age 19. He holds a B.A. in political science and economics from Swarthmore College and the team championship title of SPUR City Trivia Night. His beard (not pictured) has appeared in a documentary about the Giants' World Series run. Justin Baker Rhett is a senior at Amherst College, where he majors in art history and history. A San Francisco native, Justin has spent the past four summers working for Summerbridge San Francisco, teaching history to eighth graders. He is very interested in urban planning and plans to write a thesis on the expansion of interstate highways and freeways in the post-World War II era. Amanda Bensel comes to SPUR with an architecture degree from UC Berkeley and experience working with the City of Berkeley Planning Department and Architecture for Humanity. She will continue her studies in international environmental policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. When not working, Amanda can be found cycling, hiking or dancing frequently in costume. Jillian Burns joins SPUR for the summer before completing her final yea r as an environmental management and protection major at Cal Poly Sa n Luis Obispo. Jillian's interests include environmental J policy, sustainable development, biology and Spanish. Her favorite day of the year is Bay to Breakers.
A recent transplant from Southern California, Noah Christman has designed and managed planning and community development projects including small-scale infill housing in California, a sustainability-focused school in rural Tanzania , and monumental new town developments in Ch ina. As part of FUZ E I Comm unity Design, he has designed branding for Urban Land Institute programs in Orange County and the Inland Empire, including ULI's statewide 2010 High-Speed Rail TO D Marketplace. His cat, Tussin, is awesome. Priorto joining SPUR, Elizabeth Hoehnke worked at the Com mission for Architecture and the Built Environment in England, where she led affordable housing and street design programs. Trained in ." Australia as a landscape architect, she completed an M.A. in urban design at the University of Westm inster, London. Never without her sketchbook, Liz is a Bikram enthusiast and coffee connoisseur. Casey Jung is an undergraduate student at Barnard College in New York City, where she is majoring in urban studies and architecture. As a native San Franciscan, she is eager to learn from an organization that is committed to improving and prepa ring the city that she calls home. She hopes to expand on her experience studying climate change in cities and is looking forward to an exciting summer with SPUR. Hilary Pedigo likes to think of herself as San Fra ncisco's Girl Friday. She can't help but volunteer for those who make our city and world work better, including SPUR, Architecture 21, Maestro Films, former Supervisor Gerardo Sandova l, her local food pantry, and her neighbors in the Inner Sunset. Go Giants! Urbanist > August 20ll 19
URBAN
Eight eras of the old town: Shanghai's forgotten zones
FIELD NOTES An additivearchiveof cultura l landscapes and observations compiled by SPUR members and friends. Send your ideas to Urban Field Notes editor Ruth Keffer at editor@spur.org.
Shanghai'sold town - the Chinese City - is today considered a slum. The compact low-rise neighborhood in downtown occupies 1/3,000th of metropolitan Shanghai. Most lanes are too narrow for cars, and half the housing stock is makeshift. It's an embarrassment to locals and a little baffling to visitors. For seven hundred years this was all of Shanghai. It was hardly a slum. The city was a magnet for sea merchants, agribusiness and gentry from throughout eastern China. A surrounding wall guaranteed Shanghai's security and prosperity. In 1843 , Chinese ports were forcibly opened to foreign trade. The old town's autonomy set it apart from the rising colonial city just outside the wall - and this segregation led to its economic decline as modern Shanghai flourished. But cohesion and isolation preserved the old town. Artifacts and architectural styles from the Ming to the present are still embedded in the fabric of the alleys. The old town is authentically mixed-use and polymorphous: generations of residents, artisans, tiny businesses and antiquities are enfolded within the membrane of its lanes. The old town's rustic character is unique for being so central. But its location is hazardous. Government developers have a financial stake in evicting the poor and reintegrating the old town into the traff ic flow of the surrounding city. Success for the planners will be the death of the old town. But for the present, one can still meander across the old Shanghai and experience distinct overlapping eras. Our att raction to this archaic and quirky neighborhood turned into an ongoing (or interminable) photographic project. KatyaKnyazeva isajournalist andphotographer born in Siberia. Adam Sinykin,from New York, has written scenariosforfilm,televisionanddocumentary features. Together they haveproducedillustrated booksintheU.S. andEastAsia. BasedinChinasince 2006, theyarenow completing abook about Shanghai'soldtown: a photographic atlas, comprehensivestreet guide andoral history ofthecity's oldest and most obscurequarter. 20 Urbanist > August 2011
Caseworkers: Katya Knyazeva and Adam Sinykin
CASE STUDY #40
City labyrinth . Interaction between street, trade and social network stretches back centuries. There's a world of activity here: produce stalls, snack carts, improvised markets and family stores. Recyclers pedal their carts to the sound of a cracked bell; neighbors play cards or barter fighting crickets; families chat across the balconies, wash vegetables in the communal sinks or simply lounge in the alleys. Creeks and lanes. Fuxing Road is a 10lane highway dividing the old town. It used to be a waterway running across the city west to east. A tapestry of creeks defined the original contours of Shanghai, providing portage for river traders and irrigation for farms. As the population grew, creeks were filled and became lanes. Map courtesy virtualshanghai.com.
L-
Merchant city of the Qing. Merchants from Canton, Fujian and Ningbo immigrated to Shanghai for the exploding river trade in the 1800s. They built community centers (huiguans) that served as banquet halls, temples, brothels, theaters, hotels and graveyards. Zhening Guild Hall, 1850 , was converted to a factory in the 1960s. ---.J ÂŤ
The Gardens of the Ming. In
Lane houses.
the 16th century, Shanghai eclipsed
Shanghai's
Suzhou as a tradi ng and cultu ral
vernacular
center. Landed gentry competed
residences are
to build showpiece mansions. The
lilongs: two-sto ry
Secret Library ("Shu Yin Lou") was
units aligned in
part of a famous garden owned
rows branching
by an imperial scholar. It's the
out from a main
oldest residence in Shanghai,
lane. Originally
still occupied, and it's a ruin. The
built as cheap
government w ill not restore or
tract homes,
maintain th e property while it's in
lilongs became
private hands.
Shanghai's most quintessential and prized architecture. They were intended for one family, but today dozens of people live in each lane house.
Liberation sheds. Communist Shanghai put the knif e in new architecture, but th ere was a blizzard of quick modifications. Private houses were opened to the masses. Large buildings were subdivi ded and haphazardly expanded . Here, extra floors are slapped on a wooden tenement.
Capitalist endgame. Contem porary plans for the old tow n involve eradicating old housing, carving new traffic channels and constructi ng an antiquityflavored theme park along the
Cultural Revolution (19661976). Red Guards scrubbed off old signs, vandalized hom es, burned wooden temp les, razed old gardens and built pig-iron wo rkshops in th eir
riverside. Current residents wi ll be relocated to tenements in the suburbs.
place. Slogans and red icons we re scrawled on every wall. Urbanist > August2011
21
URBAN DRIFT EUROPEAN CITIES PUT PEDESTRIANS FIRST Across Europe, planners are taking an opposite approach to traffic planning from car-oriented American methods. While we synchronize traffic lights to increase the flow of traffic, European cities like Zurich have started spacing lights closely in an effort to slow cars down and improve the pedestrian environment. London and Stockholm have implemented congestion charges on vehicles entering the central city during business hours, and other cities have closed many of their streets to cars. With the cost of driving in Europe two to three times what it is in the United States, it makes sense for European cities to make life easier for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. And with half the world's transport emissions coming from private cars, European countries are compelled to act by the Kyoto Treaty, which the U.S. did not sign. "Across Europe, irkingdrivers is urbanpolicy," Elisabeth Rosenthal, TheNew York Times, 6/26/2011
ACITY OF PROTEST ERUPTS IN YEMEN In the five months since antigovernment protests began in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, protesters have descended on the University District and created a city-within-a-city of 3,000 to 4,000 tents. It has street names, Internet connections, pharmacies, multiple newspapers and memorials to those who have died. The tent city arose as much of the other activity in the surrounding city ground to a halt. Many businesses and 22 Urbanist > August 20 11
schools have been closed, and public activity has shifted to the tents. Citizens teach classes and give speeches, and women speak freely in public in front of crowds for the first time in their lives. Supporters of the government have their own tent city, a smaller compound near the Ministry of Culture where they dispense free food. It seems as if the momentum is on the anti-government side, however, as many business people have helped fund the unofficial tent city, and former government officials have started to defect to the side of the protesters. While the country has not yet been reformed, many of the people have already had a taste of freedom in the city of protest. "Thetent dwellersof Sana'a," AlexanderSmoltczyk, Spiegel Online, 6/30/2011
CHINA COPIES AUSTRIAN TOWN Hallstatt is, by any measure, a beautiful town. Built at the edge of a lake in a popular tourist area of Austria, it has been chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A state-owned Chinese company admires Hallstatt so much that it has chosen the town as a model for a new village in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. China Minmetals Corp. most likely wanted to keep the planned forgery a secret; the company has spent yea rs quietly visiting and drawing the city. But recently one of the secret sketchers revealed drawings for a number of the town's buildings. The U.N, cultural agency is studying the legal ramifications. "ChinasfauxHallstatt?Theoutrage!" DavidBrussat. TheProvidenceJournal, 6/23/2011
cit y news from around the globe
JAPAN'S MAGNETIC AMBITIONS
REGENERATION'S DARK SIDE: LONDON AND THE OLYMPICS
The Japan Central Railway has received permission to move forward with a $112 billion plan to build a high-speed magnetically levitated train between Osaka and Tokyo. Powered by electricity, the train will take 16 years to build and will turn the 225 mile trip - the same distance New York is from D.C.- into a 45-minute jaunt. This line is particularly expensive because, in addition to the high cost of installing new rails that will allow the train to hover above them, its designers opted to make the line as straight as possible by tunneling under mountains. The only mag-lev line ever considered in the United States would connect Las Vegas and Los Angeles, but has not received significant funding.
British author lain Sinclair's new book, Ghost Milk, is an assault on London's construction program for the 2012 Olympics, and a broader assault on the culture of urban revitalization. Sinclair asserts that the supposed goa ls of the games' planners are for nought, because much of what they seek to create already existed on the site. The worst part of the development is that many existing communities have been torn apart by the construction; Sinclair sees the legacy consisting mainly of a massive shopping mall filled with chain stores.
"Japan W,II BuildBlazinglyFastTokyotoOsaka Maglev Train," Sarah laskow, GOOD, 6/21/2011
"lainSinclair onexposing thedarksideof east London's redevelopment," ClaireAllfree, Mefro, 6/7/2011
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Urbanist > August 2011 23
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JainSPUR taday!
The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association
is a member-supported nonprofit organization. We rely on your support to promote good planning and good government through research, education and advocacy, Find out more at spur.org/join.
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654 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94105 -40 15 tel. 415 .781. 8726 fax 415.781.7 291 info@spur.org WWW.spur.org
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Street Life Verba Buena: a community design initiative Through August 24, 2011 spur.org/exhibitions
SPUR's annual report now online at spur.org/2010annualreport
Save the date!
SPUR Staff SPUR main number 415.781.8726 Accountant Terri Changx128 tchang@spur.org Public Programming Intern Noah Christman x122 publicprogramming@ spur.org Publications Assistant Mary Davis mdavis@spur.org Urban Center Director Diane Filippi x110 dfilippi@spur.org
Silver SPUR Awards Luncheon
Public Realm and Urban Design Program Manager Benjamin Grant x119 bgrant@spur.org
October 31, 2011 Sponsorships available
Development Assistant Liza Hadden x1l8 Ihadden@spur.org
spur.org/silverspur Thisnewsletteris printed on New Leaf Reincarnation paper: 100% recycled fiber and 50% post-consumer waste.
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Sponsorships and Special Events Manager Kelly Hardesty x120 khardesty@spur.org
Urban Center Event Manager Sue Meylanx130 smeylan@spur.org
Public Programming Manager Gretchen Hilyard x122 ghilyard@spur.org
Research and Volunteer Coordinator Jordan Salinger x136 jsalinger@spur.org
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Deputy Director Sarah Karlinsky x129 skarlinsky@spur.org
Publications and Communications Manager Karen Steen x112 ksteen@spur.org
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Development Director Arnie Latterman x115 alatterman@spur.org Development Associate Rachel Leonard x116 rleonard@spur.org Administrative Director Lawrence Li x134 lIi@spur.org Good Government Policy Director CoreyMarshallx125 cmarshall@spur.org Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf x113 gmetcalf@spur.org
Sustainable Development Policy Director Laura Tam x137 Itam@spur.org Regional Planning Director EgonTerplan x13l eterplan@spur.org Assistant to the Executive Director Jennifer Warburg xl17 jwarburg@spur.org Food Systems and Urban Agricultu re Program Manager Eli Zigas x126 ezigas@spur.org
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