The Year in Urbanism The End of an Era for Big Planning / Urban Ag Goes Legit / The Rise of Tactical Urbanism / Car Sharing Comes of Age / Parking Gets Smart
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The Year of the City
Allison Arieffis Editor of The Urbanist
It is with great exciteme nt that I join SPUR as editor of The Urbanist - especially right now. Has the re ever been a bette r moment for cities? The conversation around urbanism has never been so energetic, vital or so diverse in its voices. And th at's perhaps for this very good reason: Every day more of us are living in cities. The world population hit 7 billion this year, and for the first ti me in history, a majo rity of th at 7 billion is urban. By 2 03 0, it is estimated that 5 billion people w ill live in cities , wit h urban grow t h concentrated in Asia and Africa. This urban shift is positive for so many reasons, and we have a multitude of reasons to feel optimistic about th e futu re of cit ies. The issues faci ng cities, economic ones in particular, have come to domin ate political and cult ural discourse, and it 's hard to recall a ti me w here a more diverse amalgam of problem-solving cit izens working w ith, against or in lieu of government have come together to ta ckle them. We've witnessed solutions of every stripe, from grassroots effo rts to beautify neighborhoods block by block to policydriven Sustainable Commu nities Strategies. We've seen how techn ology has asserted itself even more into the ways we experience the city. On a global scale, it has helped facilitate status quo- upending protests everyw here from Cairo's Tahrir Square to New York's Zuccott i Park to th e Bay Area's BART stations; locally, a multitude of sites, sensors and
apps have helped facilit ate everyth ing from couch surfing to car sharing to kids' clothes swappi ng. We've also witnesse d a retooling of ideas around permanence. 2011 may have seen the passage of t wo major megaprojects - Treasure Island and Parkmerced - but it also saw the proliferation of flexible, temporary ones as an appropriate response to a civilization in flux. The challenge for th e next few decades is learning how to exploit th e enormous possibilities urbanization offers. It 's ever-evolving of course, and comes in fits and star ts . Any of us involved in the shaping of cities recognize the paradox of time inherent in the activity. Things move so slowly wit h regard to th e issues we care about , yet so much can, and does, happen in a year. The Year in Urbanism is an opportunity to take stoc k of th e good and the bad, to be reminded of progress made (and not made), and to refocus on the year ahead. You'll also notice a change to the cover of thi s issue (designed by Shawn Hazen), w hich provides a sneak peek at exciting changes to come in 2012 . I'd love to hear your feedback as we work on making The Urbanist an even more essential and engaging read for our membe rs. I'm at aarieff@spur.org. _
810 Allison Arieft is editor of The Urbanist and a contributing writer for The New York Times and The Atlantic Cities . She also consults on media, design and sustainability, most recently for the Rauch Foundation and IDEO. Arieft was editor-at-large for both Sunset and GOOD magazines, and was editor-in-chief (and found ing senior editor) of Dwell. Author of the books Prefab and Trailer Travel: A Visual History of Mobile America, she began her editorial career in book publishing with stints at Random House, Oxford University Press and Chronicle Books. She received her B.A. in history from UCLA, her MA in art history from UC Davis, and completed her Ph.D. coursework in American studies at New York University. Arieff lives in San Francisco w here she has a 50 0-s quare-foot urban farm in her backyard.
Cover images, clockwise from topright: car, skyscraper,highway (Michael O'Neall; beergarden(Envelope A+D). SausalitoFactory(HeathCeramics); Proxy (Envelope A+D); sign (VJP:flickr); fog (O'Neall; garden(LittleCity Ga rdens); cityview (KristaJahnke); and Bi-RiteMarket (Aya Brackett) 2 Urbanist > December2011
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Decembe r 2011 What we're doing
HIGH-SPEED RAIL BUSINESS PLAN PAINTS REALISTIC PICTURE OF COSTS AND BENEFITS SPUR remains as committed as ever to the building of a high-speed rail network connecting northern and southern California. The updated cost figures from November's California High-Speed Rail Project Business Plan are sobering but realistic. While the price tag of highspeed rail is high, it is roughly half the cost of adding equivalent capacity through highways and airports. Now is the time to move the project forward, begin construction and identify regional revenues to help pay for related upgrades like electrifying Caltrain and extending the train to the Transbay Terminal. The business plan can be found at l.usa.gov/ HSRbusinessplan. SPUR SUPPORTS TRANSBAY TRANSIT DISTRICT PLAN The San Francisco Planning Department recently released the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Transit Center District Plan, one of the city's most important and ambitious to date. The plan proposes severa l towers for the district, including a I ,OOO-foot tower at the Transbay Transit Station. SPUR believes the passage of this plan is critical to the future of the city and the region. While other job centers
depend on driving, downtown Sa n Francisco is dense, walkable and well-served by transit. Half of its 250,000 workers walk, bike or take public transit to their jobs. The Transit Center District Plan provides much-needed additional office space in exactly the right location. SPUR lends its support to the draft report for adequately analyzing the impacts of the plan while supporting the goals of compact job growth in the region's most transit-rich location.
FOCUSING ON TRANSIT EFFICIENCY Over the past decade, operating costs for transit in the Bay Area increased far more quickly than inflation. At the same time, ridership and other measures of performance have been flat or declining. To fix this, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission launched the Transit Sustainability Project (TSP). SPUR has participated closely in this project, which focuses on making transit financially sustainable by reigning in everesca lating operating costs. For more information: mtc.ca.gov/ planning/tsp/
PENSION REFORM COMES TO SAN FRANCISCO In spite of the potential confusion caused by competing ballot measures, Sa n Francisco voters approved the Proposition C pension reform measure on election day. Crafted in an intensive process involving city officials, SPUR staff and representatives from business and labor, Prop. C passed with more than 69 percent support. This makes Sa n Francisco the first big city in Ca lifornia to pass a significant pension reform package, with projected savi ngs of as much as $1.29 billion over 10 years. While these savi ngs represent only a fraction of the overall pension challenge facing the city, this victory is an important first step towards answering the question of how to pay for public employee benefits. In addition to pension reform,
SPUR's other recommendations also fared well at the ballot. Voters approved bond funds to repair and retrofit schools and roads, and voted down a sales tax measure that did not have an expenditure plan of any kind.
MAYOR ADOPTS EARTHQUAKE SAFETY PROGRAM Last month Mayor Ed Lee released a draft of the Earthquake Safety Implementation Program, a 30year road map for strengthening San Francisco's stock of privately owned buildings, so our city can be well situated to withstand a major earthquake. The program includes 50 objectives that comprehensively address San Francisco's building stock. One of the most important is a plan to retrofit Sa n Francisco's "soft story" apartment buildings those that have large openings like garage doors or storefront windows on the ground floor. These buildings house a substantial number of San Franciscans and are also very vulnerable to damage. SPUR has long called for a program of mandatory retrofits for soft-story buildings and enthusiastically endorses the Earthquake Safety Implementation Program.•
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The Year in Urbanism It's a fool's game to try and predict the future. Instead, in our second annual Year in Urbanism issue, SPUR aim s to capture some of the biggest trends that have shaped the city over the past year. What did we leave out? Let us know at editor@spur.org.
What's Next for Big Planning? Special thanks toAnthony Bruzzone, Corey Cook, Neal Gorenflo, Jay Primus, KateSofis, and Lorraine Woodruff-Long.
I 2009HousingElement: Parll, Table A-2. 1 onebayarea.org/ pdf/alternative/ SCS Alternative Scenanos Aug -2011 pdf
Land-use plans come in essentially two forms: neighborhood plans, which encompass many parcels, buildings and owners; and megaprojects encompassing large, single-ownership parcels. Because they are owned by a single entity, megaproj ects have the potential to support substantial changes to both buildings and infrastructure. Megaprojects provide greater opportunities to changethings like circulation, WHAT IT MEAN S stormwater management and energy supply, and Wh ile the passage of Treasure Island sometimes generate higher levels of affordable can and Parkmerced represent a great housing because of the economies of sca le in accomplishment for the city, t here construction. However there are often greater are fewer and fewer opportun ities for placemaking challenges to overcome to ensure that "mega projects" like th is left in the city. development feels varied and orga nic as opposed to At the same time, there are not many homogeneous and sterile. new ne ighborhood plans in the works Neighborhood plans by contrast cover a wide that propose major land- use changes . variety of parcels and are implemented over time All of th is raises questions about what through the actions of individual property owners, the future of forward- looking planning creating a varied and interesting environment. But will be in San Francisco. big changes in public realm improvements and infrastructure are more difficult to achieve this way. In the past ten years, San Francisco has completed The road to adoption for both neighborhood a remarkable amount of planning work. The Eastern plans and mega projects is long and winding. The Neighborhoods Plans rezoned four neighborhoods, Market and Octavia Better Neighborhood Plan including East SoMA, the Mission, Potrero/ took more than a decade to complete. Mission Bay Showplace Square and the Central Waterfront. took more than three decades. There are many The Better Neighborhoods Plans including the reasons for this, but it comes down to the fact that Market/Octavia Plan and the Balboa Pa rk Plan people in San Francisco don't agree about what also secured passage. Add to this megaprojects kinds of development should take place, or even like Hunters Point Shipyard, Treasure Island and whether there should be development. State laws Parkmerced, and the city has added capacity for like the California Environmental Quality Act create morethan 30 ,000 1 additional units of housing. This lots of opportunities for these disagreements to is a major accomplishment. But at the same time, play out in protracted public processes. And San regional agencies have projected that San Francisco Franciscans with many different agendas try to get will need to add between 76,000 and 110,000 new development to pay for as many public needs units over thirty years, so our work is not yet done.' as they can, resulting in lengthy negotiations.
WHAT HAPPEN ED
Two major pro jects-Treasure Island and Parkmerced-were adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 2011. Collective ly these pro jects will lead to the creat ion of more t han 13,0 0 0 new units of housing.
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The likely elimination of redevelopment in California, a key initiative of Governor Jerry Brown, will bring further changes to the field of large-scale planning. Redevelopment has been the major way that neglected areas slated for new development are able to pay for infrastructure, as well as a major source of funding for affordable housing in the state. For some cities, such as Sa n Jose, which had the largest redevelopment agency in the state, redevelopment is truly over, and this will mean a sea change in how planning works. For communities like San Francisco, redevelopment may be able to continue more or less as it has in the past, but with reduced resources to fund affordable housing and other public benefits. In the midst of all these changes, San Francisco appears to have become reticent to take on new large-scale planning work. Some of the major plans currently in the works were initiated many years ago and are now nearing completion, such as the Transbay Transit Center and Western SoMA. Others, such as Glen Park and Japantown, are called land-use plans but propose almost no landuse changes that increase zoning capacity. Still others are "strategies," not land-use plans, i.e. the Central Market Economic Strategy, which primarily does not propose changes in what can be built. Only the newly initiated Central Corridor plan for SOMA between 2nd and 6th streets contemplates
substantial new land-use changes. But what does this all mean if you care, as SPUR does, about building a substantial number of housing units and adding new jobs near transit? Should we assume that over the next 30 years we have a few more megaprojects and only very targeted neighborhood plans to complete before San Francisco is "done"? Do we continue to do neighborhood plans, in spite of how long they take and how expensive they are? Do we continue to argue for the importance of city building, even when it is long and often painful to do? The answer, we believe, is all of the above. It is critical to the city and the region that San Francisco continue to find new places to add housing and jobs. Stonestown Shopping Center, Pier 70, the air-rights over the 4th and King Caltrain Station and Schlage Lock are all potential new megaprojects. Surely there are others as well. There are smallscale changes to the Planning Code that will help without significantly changing the scale of allowable development. And of course there are many neighborhoods that would benefit from the kind of careful, intensive planning work we saw in the Better Neighborhoods process. City building is not easy to do. But even in this difficult climate, San Francisco needs to be up to the task. -Sarah Karlinsky
A com pact, transit-oriented community is at the heart of the master plan for Treasure Island. Will we see more of these in the future? Urbanist > December2D ll 5
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The Rise of Tactical Urbanism WHAT HAPPENED Proxy, the temporary two -block project design ed by Envelo p e Architecture+Design, transformed a series of vacant lots in Hayes Vall ey into a destination for food, art and culture. It also made the case fo r suc ces sful short-term use of undeveloped land in San Francisco. Mixed -use, highdensity development, including af fo rdab le housing, is eventually planned for the site, but in the me antime, Proxy will act as a placeholder through 2016 .
WHAT IT MEANS Proxy represents a unique coming tog ether of entities typically at odds with ea ch other - planning and bui ld ing departments, co m m u nit ies, archi tects. As a model for int erim use of vacant land, Proxy is d eve loping policy and protocol alo ng the way to help assuage the diverse concerns of the government, city residents, land ow ners and developers.
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In 20 05, Envelope Arc hite ct ure+ Design won f irst prize in t he Octavia Boulevard Housing Competition, designing housing for one of six city-owned parcels freed up by th e removal of the Central Freeway. Then the economy tanked and w ith it drown ed any hope of gett ing the innovative housing proposals built. But a few years later, Envelope got a nice consolat ion prize w hen the firm responded to a request for proposals from the San Francisco Mayor's Office for tempo rary uses on the very same vacant lots. Wh at they proposed was a temporary project built from durable, portab le shipping containers that wo uld help create a vibrant place for both commerce and culture in the heart of Hayes Valley. Since the city is still committed to building affo rdable housing on the site some day, th e project was of necessity conceived as something temporary in nature, hence the name "proxy." Both th e city and local residents were keen to avoid a proliferation of parking lots, and their preference for a vibrant and vital alternative helped Proxy come into being. Equally important was the collaboration among the architects, th e Mayor's Office of Economic and Workforce Developm ent, the Planning Departm ent, t he Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association and the local community .
The little village of local restaurant s, cafes and retail that make up Proxy (cur rent tenants includ e Ritual Coffee Roasters, Smitte n Ice Cream and th e Suppenkuche Biergarten) has temporarily transformed an underused but high-value urban area into a thri ving cultural space - and w ill do so for five more years. The project reveals temp orary interventions as an apt response to a civilizatio n in flux, and could easily be applied to other sites in San Francisco or in other cit ies. It is important to note, however, th e considerable challenges in creating such projects. Envelope has had to obtain more than 25 permit s to date, and t he firm expects that numb er to exceed 50 by th e end of the project. Each separate structure at Proxy required its ow n address. Environm ental review was necessary - at a cost of $5 ,000 despite th e temporary nature of th e project. The building department didn't quite know w hat to do w ith Proxy as its many facets didn 't adhere to conventional build ing code; in response, some have suggested the introduction of a "Renewa ble Temp orary" category, allow ing more flexibility for future endeavors. The path to Proxy was fu eled by th e success of temporary projects initiated by New York's Departm ent of Transportati on Commissioner Jeanette Sadik-Khan in recent years. Her groundbreaking work has helped bring about a change in conventional w isdom in th e developm ent com munity, empowe ring th e city to wo rk w it h developers to allow for desirable uses on th eir properties on an interim basis. We're seeing th e impact of this in cities t hroughout the count ry. Historically, vacant lots, empty storef ronts and dirt plots wait ing for developm ent have blighted
their surroundings and have dragged down property values. Proxy has demonstrated how positive changes can be made to a neighborhood; th e challenge ahead is how to mitigate th e losses w hen a popul ar project is eventually removed to make way for futur e development. Having explored and experienced th e potential of th e pub lic realm, t he neighborhood w ill demand more of th e same in t he futur e. The hope is th at th e project can change both pu blic and bureaucratic perceptions of w hat is possible in San Francisco. - Alliso n Arieff
The Proxy site before as parking lot (left) and, below right, its transformation into cafe, and (above) bierga rten.
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Finally, a Dent in the Payroll Tax WHAT HAPPENED The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed two critical pieces of legislation enabling companies that use stock options as compensation to stay in the city as they grow, rather than leaving once they get big enough to go public: a payroll tax exclusion for up to eight years for companies that locate in the MidMarket neighborhood, and a payroll tax exclusion for all stock-based compensation until 2017.
W HAT IT MEANS The current law has discouraged businesses from growing, created a system of governing by exception and undermined the stability of business tax revenue. For years SPUR and others have pushed for a change to the payroll tax without real success, as the city has long resisted reform of its payroll tax structure. These two pieces of legislation are the first real acknowledgment that the payroll tax as current ly structured does not work. San Francisco's business tax requires companies with payrolls of more than $250,000 to pay the equivalent of 1.5 percent of total employee compensation in taxes. No other city in the state levies a payroll tax in the same manner. In the wake of the most recent recession, a renewed focus on job creation and excitement over a resurgent technology sector this year resu lted in a fierce battle to retai n some of the city's new companies - like Twitter, Zynga and Yelp - before they leave town for good. While the payroll tax discourages new hiring in any company that has the ability to easily move its jobs elsewhere, the problem has been particularly bad for new companies that rely on stock options. In the year a company "goes public" with an initial public offering (IPO), it pays enormous taxes because the value of the stock options is taxed. Relatively tiny companies would be paying
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more payroll tax in those years than much larger, established companies. The result has been a familiar pattern in which San Francisco nurtures new companies, only to see them leave once they are successful. The Mid-Market legislation solved this problem for companies located in one neighborhood. We would have preferred a citywide approach, but at least there was some policy merit to the idea of geographic targeting to create an incentive to add jobs in an area that has experienced chronic disinvestment. We have bought ourselvessome time to come up with a more enduring solution. SPUR has argued for years that the city should restructure its tax system to remove disincentivesto hiring. While we have been supportive of targeted exemptionsby industry or geography - we also believe that continued governing by exception has exposed the weaknesses of the current tax structure and reinforced the need for a permanent solution that is more equitable and less volatile. This pattern of exceptions has resulted in a system where barely 10 percent of businesses pay the payroll tax. SPUR believes we shouldn't be making tax policy by exception, scrambling to save specific companies from leaving at the last minute. What we need instead is a tax structure that will work across the board . Yes, there needs to be a business tax (or, rather, several different business taxes). But we have the opportunity to structure it in a way that does the most good, and the least harm, to our economy. The next yea r will be telling in terms of whether we have the political will to build on the successes of 2011. -Corey Marshall
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Prioritizing Neighborhood Schools housing, as a proxy for race to balance out student populations. Parents could list up to five, and later seven, schools of their choice to participate in the lottery. More recently, increased parent activism and a mini baby boom have helped bring about changes in enrollment patterns. In 2007, kindergarten enrollment increased for the first time in 30 years. Families began to choose a wider variety of schools instead of a select few. Still, a minority of parents make their designated area school their first choice. With more schools perceived as quality educational options, many parents faced increasing competition from families throughout the city for a spot in a nearby school. Additionally, a distraught WHAT IT MEANS 15 to 19 percent of parents received none of their Eve n w ith greater neig hb o rh o o d first choices and were left to fend for spots in w ei g ht ing, there w as no inc rease in subsequent roundsThe achievement gap widened pare nts choos ing the ir area school in San Francisco as many schools once again during the f irst y ear of the ne w system. became more segregated. Disadvantaged and The lo ng term resu lts of this po lic y disconnected families often found themselves left c ha nge rema in to be seen . out of the application process, resulting in limited school options and increasing racial isolation. San Francisco has a long and complicated history In 2011, the school district introduced a new of striving toward a student assignment system that school assignment system that is weighted more is fair and equitable for families and that provides heavily toward neighborhood schools than in recent the best academic outcomes for students. years . However, SFUSD reported no increase in In the 1970s, the San Francisco Unified School parents choosing their area school in the first year District (S FUSD) - like many urban districts of the new system. Furthermore, the November adopted the policy of busing students in order to 2011 Proposition H advisory measure encouraging desegregate schools. Reverberations from this policy increased focus on neighborhood resulted in a were swift and widely felt: Private school enrollment virtual dead heat, indicating that Sa n Francisco skyrocketed from 15 percent to near 30 percent remains divided on the issue. of all Sa n Francisco children. Additionally, families All things being equal, families reportthat they began to leave the city once their children neared like the idea of a neighborhood school. But for too school age. These trends have continued, and many, the "right school" - whatever that means today Sa n Francisco has the smallest proportion of to them - trumps proximity. Uneven school households with children of any major U.S. city. leadership and program placement, coupled with SFUSD eventually returned to a neighborhood wide disparities in neighborhood crime, housing assignment policy and developed magnet schools patterns and socia l challenges, result in limited to attract families. But to address lawsuits in options in many neighborhoods. It remains to be the 1980s by the NAACP and the 1990s from seen if the new system will do any better than Chinese-America n families and also appease previous schemes, but based on past experience we families that now were clamoring to opt out of their can expect that the current system will not be the neighborhood schools, the choice-based diversitylast. Hopefully, though, it will provide some respite index student assignment policy was born. In 2001, for the community to refocus on the root issue: the district implemented a lottery-style choice ensuring that all San Francisco public schools are system employing non-race-based factors, such quality schools. as eligibility for food stamps or residence in public - Lorraine Woodruff-Long
WHAT HAPPENED
The San Fra ncisco Board of Education adopted a new policy for t he 2011-12 sc hoo l year t hat aga in attempts to add ress comm un ity concerns and the academ ic need s of students. The new system g ives g reate r w ei gh t to t hose app ly ing to a nei gh b o r ho o d sc hoo l wi th priority g ive n to students Iivin~ in census tracts wit h low academ ic performance to provide increased opportunity.
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Urban Ag Goes Legit WHAT HAPPENED Both San Francisco and Oakland passed legislation making it legal to grow and sell produce within city limits. Selling homegrown fruits and vegetables was previously illegal in both cities.
WHAT IT MEAN S The passage of the legislation puts the Bay Area at the leading edge of policy on this issue, providing a model for other cities across the country. But it raises an underlying question for policy: Should the goal be significant food production for the local population? Or should a city instead promote urban agriculture as a way to educate city residents and better connect them with local food systems? To explore these questions, SPUR launched a Food Systems and Urban Agriculture program this year.
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On April 20, Mayor Ed Lee, Supervisor David Chiu and Supervisor Eric Mar led what may have been the first "salad toast" at Little City Gardens in the Excelsior District. Raising bowls of San Franciscogrown mixed greens, they were joined by dozens of urban agriculture supporters celebrating the mayor's signing of urban agriculture zoning legislation. The bill explicitly welcomes gardens and small urban farms throughout the city and, more importantly, allows gardeners to grow food for sale in any zoning district. This change, coming on the heels of legislative reforms in cities such as Ka nsas City and Seattle, placed San Francisco at the leading edge of urban agricultura l reform. Later in the year, San Francisco's policy was cited as a model by urban ag advocates and planners in Oakland, Chicago and British Columbia. Oakland soon followed Sa n Francisco's lead by updating its land-use and health codes. In October, the Oakland City Council changed the definition of home occupations to allow residents to grow food for sale in their yards with minimal fees. The city is still working on updating its regulations for urban agriculture on non-residential lots and for animal husbandry in the city. Advocates in Berkeley have also begun pushing for urban agriculture code changes, but the city has yet to pass any legislation. While policymakers in San Francisco and Oakland deserve credit for shepherding these changes, in both cases the driving energycame from grassroots efforts. The legislative ball got rolling in Sa n Francisco when Brooke Budner and Caitlyn Ga lloway, the farmers/proprietors of Little City Gardens, decided that rather than get a conditional-use permit for their operation they would get the law changed. In Oakland, forces mobilized after the city cited urban farmer and author Novella Carpenter of Ghost Town Farm for growing food on a vaca nt lot without first obtaining a conditional-use permit, which costs $2,800. In both instances, community groups rallied arou nd the issue and helped advocate for change. Decades earlier, cities had pushed farming away; now energized urban farmers spearheaded efforts to bring it back. Overflow crowds attended the San Francisco Planning Com mission hearing in February, which city planning staff described as an unprecedented "love fest," with commissioners competing to
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demonstrate the depth of their farm cred before unanimously approving the proposed changes. In Oakland, the Planning Department held a weeknight community meeting to discuss changes. Nearly 300 people showed up. How to regulate animal husbandry was the hot topic of the evening. (At press time, Oakland was still developing its proposa l.) The zoning change in San Francisco has influenced similar changes in other cities, but its impact within Sa n Francisco is still unknown. The number of urban farms on private land rema ins quite small, and few gardeners have applied for a permit under the new law. Though the lega l obstacles may have been navigated, many other ones still stand in the way. That two high-profile farms - Hayes Valley Farm and Little City Gardens - both faced land tenure issues in 2011 points to the challenges ahead.
The picture on public land is a bit more mixed. In October the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission took a step toward further supporting urban farms and gardens by offering to waive fees for a limited number of new water hookups and commissioning a feasibility study for urban agriculture projects on two of its properties. But other public agencies have not been as active in promoting new community gardens or farms on public land, despite the persistence of long waiting lists for existing plots. Land access, land tenure and commercial viability remain issues for city farmers. Looking ahead, cities will need to determine how to focus their efforts. Urban farming began to take root this past year, but it will take more work by both advocates and policymakers to ensure that urban agriculture flourishes in the future. -Eli Zigas
From left , the proprie tors of Littl e City Gardens and the fru its (and vegetab les) of their labor; Mayor Ed Lee signing new legilsation in Apri l.
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Sharing the City (children's clothes), NeighborGoods (general) and many more. There are thousands of such startups. Many are small, local or struggling. Others - like Airbnb, Zimride and ThredUP - have substantial user traction, venture capital funding and national or international footprints. WHAT IT MEANS The positive dynamics of car sharing, which W e are wi tn essing a redefinition is undergoing its own global boom, suggest of t he bas ic co ncept of prosperity, what's possible if these companies prevail and especia lly for younger people. Rather the economy is restructured for access instead than emphasizing material owners hip, of ownership. Car sharing is the decades-old people want experience. If t hey ca n archetype of the sharing economy, but it has get what they wa nt wit hout having to arguably only come of age recently with more own it, so much the better. Of cou rse sophisticated technology, a global footprint and the one can't discount the inf luence of the first publicly traded car-sharing company, Zipcar, recess ion - sharing emerges at a t ime which went public earlier this year. With maturity w hen the need to spend, and consume, comes rea l metrics: less is paramount. The mass popularity • A 2010 UC Berkeley survey of 6,281 North of car shar ing is t he most ob vious American car-sharing members showed that more example of a muc h broader economy than 50 percent of households who joined did not of sharing . already have access to a car, and that the total vehicle count in the sample dropped by 50 percent In the sharing economy, prosperity is achieved after joining. through an economy that supports hea lthy • The same study showed that one car-sharing relationships, civic participation, meaningful vehicle replaces 9 to 13 owned cars. experiences, creative expression and purposeful • A 2011 eGo CarShare study showed that work. Here material culture connects us rather than members' car travel dropped an average of 52 dividing us by status symbols, and thus supports percent after joining. happiness. Access trumps the burden of ownership. • The American Public Transportation Sharing resets the focus on where prosperity Association estimates that people save an average is centered - with loved ones in our homes, of $9,900 a year for each car eliminated from a neighborhoods and cities. (It is worth noting that at household. this stage the sharing movement seems decidedly • The Intelligent Cities project estimates that a urban. Expanding these beliefs and behaviors city can keep $127 million in the local economy beyond the urban core is essential to our future annually by reducing the number of privately owned health and success.) cars by 15,000. This may sound like the fantasy of an idealist, but These findings suggest that a city can recently scores of new companies have emerged significantly broaden citizen access to resources, to help people share a surprisingly wide variety dramatically reduce resource consumption, save of assets - mostly in cities, the perfect platform citizens money, and strengthen the urban economy, for sharing. They include Airbnb (rooms and all through sharing. And recent developments in apartments), Loosecubes (coworking openings), car sharing suggest a pathway for the rest of the TechShop (industrial machinery), La Cocina sharing economy. At the center of this possible (commercial kitchen space), ParkatmyHouse future is RelayRides, one of the first peer-to-peer (parking spaces), Zimride (ride sharing), Weeeis car-sharing services. Within the last yea r RelayRides (taxi sharing), YardShare (gardens), Grubwithus helped pass AB 1871, a Ca lifornia insurance law (restaurant dinners), Housefed (home dinners), enabling car owners to keep coverage if they rent Vayable (experiences), Skillshare (skills), ThredUP their car to a neighbor; received venture backing ~
WHAT HAPPENED
Cit y CarShare ce lebrated 10 years of providing access to a car wit hout t he costs of owners hip.
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Clipper Card Takes Off WHAT HAPPEN ED With grea t fanfare, the Clipper card arrived on Muni in 2011. After first rolling out on AC Transit and BART in 2010, Clipper now allows passengers to use one card to pay for fares on seven different regional transit lines. By this fall, about 500,000 transit passengers were using the Bay Area's transit smart card every day.
WHAT IT MEAN S One of the Bay Area's b iggest headaches is its huge number of pub lic transit agencies. Clipper is one big step toward making the reg ion's 27 agencies function more like one. But right now, Clipper's primary benefit is to make it easier for transit agencies to squeeze money out of their customers. In fact, Muni used the technology to enact a fare increase for Muni monthly pass holders who also use BART. The original promise of bringing smart-card technology to the Bay Area was to improve coord ination among transit agencies and encourage passengers to move easily between modes. Clipper was promoted as benefiting passengers, but so far it's the agencies that appea r to be profiting. SPUR and other groups need to help the region think innovatively about usingsmart-card technology for concepts that benefit both passengers and taxpayers - and will help get more people out of
their cars. Some of the more interesting possibilities include: • Getting cash off the bus: Traditional fare collection is a massively inefficient way to capture passenger reven ue. As the bus idles while passengers deposit cash into the fare box, dollar bills are floating out the door; fare collection accounts for more than 10 percent of Muni's running time. Clipper speeds boarding and reduces dwell time and that saves money. • Discounting reverse commute trips: Every day, BART trains carry lots of people into San Francisco but are relatively empty as they return to the East Bay. Clipper's technology allows for discount fares in the off-peak direction, encouraging ridership that doesn't cost anything for BART to provide. • Agencies have struggled for years to coordinate fares between operators, with almost no success. The Clipper technology could enable interagency fare rebates and other concepts that incentivize transit agencies to deliver more passengers to each other. As an exa mple, if BART paid Muni directly for each passenger Muni delivered to BART (similar to a finder's fee), BART might get more passengers and more revenue, and Muni would get more passengers and ideally more revenue . Muni might develop a discounted fare for passengers connecting to BART to get the money that BART would pay them. Everyone - BART, Muni and especially passengers - could benefit. In the long run, Clipper can be a great tool to innovate in transit - a traditionally stodgy business - and to help make the region's transit systems seamless. -Anthony Bruzzone
Continuedfrom page 12
from Google, which recently developed driverless cars; and forged a strategic partnership with GM's OnStar service, which will lead to car-sha ring technology being installed at the factory. The implications of these developments are far-reaching - picture the emergence of a realtime, on-demand, self-orga nized, quasi-public transportation system that automatically allocates and routes available cars and seats in cars to those who request a lift from their smartphone. Taken
to its extreme, our material rea lity is reordered accord ing to the architecture of the Internet, the ultimate self-orga nized commons . Of course, this future is not assured. And it should be complemented by other low-cost, low-tech ways to enable sharing. Just as RelayRides needed to change laws, so must other sharing enterprises. The sharing economy will require its own regulatory framework, as the growth economy did before it. - Neal Gorenflo
Urbanist > December 2011 13
12_ _ .11 _ _I THE YEAR IN URBANISM
1
Ranked Choice Voting WH AT HAPPENED San Francisco's first competitive mayoral election using ranked-choice voting is on the books, and by most objective measures the system held up rather well: The election results were clear and uncontroversial, individual ballots contained fewer errors than in past contests and most voters chose to participate fully by ranking their first-, second- and third -choice candidates.
WHAT IT MEANS Despite these results, it's still unclear whether ranked-choice voting accurately reflects popular opinion. While 73.2 percent of voters ranked three different candidates in the mayoral election, only 52.4 percent did so in the five-candidate race for district attorney and 42.6 percent in the four-candidate race for sheriff. Bullet vot ing (voting only for one candidate) remains prevalent: In the mayoral election 16 percent of voters indicated a preference for only one candidate, as did 27 percent in the DA's race and 38 percent in the sheriff's race. It's not clear if a sizab le block of voters sincerely preferred only one candidate or whether they were unsure what to make of a ranked-choice ballot. Meanwh ile, 1.2 percent of voters marked more than one cand idate as their first choice. This figure is higher than in standard "vote for one" candidate races, and it invalidated a couple thousand votes overall . The deeper questions about the relative effects of ranked-choice voting are difficult to answer. In addition to the voting system, the context of the election included generous public financing, an incredibly deep pool of serious contenders and a popular acting mayor who entered the race at
14 Urbanist > December 2011
the last minute. It's impossible to disentangle the independent effects of ranked-choice voting. But it's easy to see the deep flaws in this election. The clear results from November's election included abysmal turnout - right around 42 percent - the lowest in a contested mayoral election since at least the 1960s. Only Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2007 landslide re-election was lower. Voters are rational. They weigh the costs and benefits of casting a ballot in determining whether or not to participate in an election. And this was a costly election: Sorting through the relative strengths and weaknessesof twelve serious candidates and ranking one's three choices takes quite a bit of information. And it was not clear what the benefits of voting would be to an individual voter. Aside from the fact that the twelve candidates operated within the relatively narrow ideological spectrum of San Fra ncisco politics and might have appeared similar to voters, polls indicated (correctly as it turned out) that acting Mayor Ed Lee was well ahead. This signals to voters that their vote is unlikely to matter in the outcome. The mayoral race, generally uneventful for the better part of a yea r, became exceptionally nasty in the final month. While ranked-choice voting has been said to discourage negative campaigning, it only really discourages negative hits on those lower in the standings, whose ballots are likely to be redistributed. The front-runner is still fair game because her or his votes are unlikely to be transferred to another candidate - which means there is no need to worry about offending the frontrunner's supporters. Whether by chance or design, as the relative positioning of the candidates became clear in the month or so before the election, the race turned decidedly ugly. And while the election produced no surprise upsets like the one in Oakland's 2010 mayoral contest, the seeming clarity of the margins of victory in the three contests hides another fact: In 15 of the 18 ranked-choice contests held so far in San Francisco, the winning candidate did not receive a majority of the votes cast. Mayor Ed Lee only appeared on 43.9 percent of ballots. Sheriff-elect Ross Mirkarimi appeared on 46.9 percent. Their "majorities" were secu red in relation to their nearest competitors and rested upon on tens of thousands
VOTES GAINED BY EACH CANDIDATE PER RCV ELECTION ROUND
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of ballots that were eliminated early in the counting vast majority of voters will see these outcomes as rounds because they did not include second or third legitimate (unlike what appears to have happened choices. These elections did not simulate a majority in Oakland, where a mayor who did not win a majority now faces a lack of support). And there runoff. Only District Attorney-elect George Gascon won is no evidence that any of the city supervisors an actual majority of votes, an outcome that largely who were elected without a majority have had to rested on his good fortune to compete in the final convince their constituents that they legitimately round against David Onek rather than Sharmin won. Still, particularly for a mayor, there is an Bock. While Bock's votes were split in Gascon's advantage to securing a majority electoral coalition favor, had she received a couple thousand more when it comes time to govern. And a city facing significant economic, institutional, fiscal and votes and leapfrogged Onek, the race would have social challenges needs effective leadership. The been exceptionally close, as Onek voters preferred jury remains out on whether ranked-choice voting Bock to Gascon by a wide margin. facilitates this. The critical question is whether this impacts elected officials' ability to govern effectively. The -Corey Cook concept of a "mandate" is a highly contested one in political science. All of the winners on election night received the legal mandate to govern. And it is likely, given the margin of victory, that the Urbanist > December2011 15
I
12.11
THE YEAR IN URBANISM
The Return of Manufacturing In recent years, San Francisco manufacturers have touted their localness as a key competitive differentiator. Many now collectively market under the shared brand of SFMade, a non-profit organization (of which I am executive director) formed in early 2010 to help support the local manufacturing sector. Along the way, perceptions that San Francisco is indeed a place to make things - not just design them - have helped attract the likes of venera ble companies such as Heath Ceramics, which recently announced the expansion of its manufacturing into San Francisco with a 30-year lease on a 60,OOO-square-foot production space in the Northeast Mission. San Francisco continues to face challenges, particularly around mitigating the overall complexities and higher costs of doing business in this dense, expensive city. Sa n Francisco manufacturers are inherently labor intensive, as they leverage human skill heavily in order to differentiate their products from mass-made goods and to imbue WHAT IT MEANS their products and process with flexibility and The resurgence of new and modern customization capability. Many struggle with the forms of urban manufacturing in San cost and complexity of hiring and compensating Francisco holds the potential not only their workforce. Policymakers at City Hall need to to add much-needed jobs to the local work harder to help well-intended policies like the economy but to in cr ease the diversity Sa n Francisco Healthcare Ordinance work better of employment opportunities for San in practice for smaller manufacturers who need to use a flexible mix of full-time and part-time workers. Franciscans and add to the v itality of We can also do a better job of helping local our urban community. Th is should not be v iewed as a blue-collar renaissance; manufacturers take advantage of existing incentives, such as the state Enterprise Zone program. It allows rather, modern manufacturing in local businesses to offset the higher cost of doing San Francisco is a rich and diverse business in the city by claiming both state and local amalgam of lo ng -st andi ng businesses tax credits - potentially worth almost $40,00 0 per like Anchor Brewers and Disti llers, employee - for hiring local residents from our most which has weathered the decades economically challenged communities. The program and continues to reinvent itself; small has a particularly low rate of use considering that and nimb le young manufacturers 90 percent of San Fran cisco's manufacturers are like Betabrand, which re leases ne w located in an eligible zone. clothing designs almost week ly and On the land-use front, industrial real estate in sells entirely onl ine; and compan ies San Francisco is still at a premium as compared to that are a hybrid of technology, design that of smaller, less dense cities, suburban areas and craft, like DodoCase, which uses and other parts of the United States. The city's traditional bookbinding to create cases recent rezoning of the eastern neighborhoods for the contemporary iPad . has helped to identify desirable industrial areas for manufacturing, and a combination of zoning controls and the economic climate have alleviated
WHAT HAPPENED
As many industries continued to struggle and hiring across most remained flat, San Francisco's urban manufacturing scene revealed a glimmer of hope. Since the start of the recession, not only has this sector g iven rise to dozens of ne w compan ies, but also both new and ex isting manufacturers are creat ing jobs: Between 2010 and 2011 San Franciscobased manufacturers added close to 10 percent net new jo b s, as compared to San Francisco's overa ll job growth rate of 2.1 percent. Manufacturers here ha ve found particu lar strength in marrying the c raft-based skills of urban and immigrant commun ities w it h prowess in the design and creat ive sectors.
16 Urbanist > December2011
the most severe land-use competition. The result is a comparatively more affordable industrial real estate landscape, and manufacturers have been responding favorably by trying to grow in place, rather than leaving the city once they begin to scale. However, San Francisco will still need to closely monitor its industrial real estate availability and prices as we begin to pull out of the recession and commercial industrial markets begin to heat up once again. We also need to pay attention to mix of uses: today's manufacturers are inherently hybrid businesses, blending design, manufacturing, administration and factory retail into the same space. But there are early signs that the prominent manufacturing industrial zoning type - production, distribution and repair (PDR) - may not be keeping pace with the way that actual manufacturers use their space, especially where accessory use allowances are concerned. We will need to ensure that the very industrial zoning intended to protect local manufacturing remains flexible enough to accommodate this ever-changing landscape of creative and shape-shifting urban producers.
Today, manufacturing is local, regional and global at the same time. It is happening in other American cities- from New York to Chicago, Cleveland to Atlanta - as evidenced by the growing membership of the Urban Manufacturing Alliance, a national coalition of U.S. cities launched by SFMad e and the Pratt Center in New York in 2011. It's also happening in other parts of the world, with the recent launches of Made in Copenhagen and Hello Etsy in Berlin. San Francisco manufacturers have global supply chains, and almost 50 percent of them export to one or more countries. But perhaps most important, San Francisco manufacturers rely on their regional connections most of all: from suppliers in Oakland to distributors in Los Angeles and contract manufacturing partners in Marin. Urban Manufacturing 2.0 may be a very individual expression of each city's core capa bilities, but we are only as strong as the other urban manufacturing economies to which we are inherently connected. - Kate Sofis
Manufacturing is reemerging as an economic force in San Francisco. Heath Ceramics, for exam ple, will open a new production facility and retail space in thecity as announced by co-owner Robin Petravic, shown here at a press conference with Mayor Ed Lee in September.
Urbanist > December2011 17
12.11
I THE YEAR IN URBANISM
Parking Gets Smart WHAT HAPPENED In 2011, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency launched SFpark, a pilot project of smart metering technology that is arguably the world's most advanced parking management system. Sensors, installed in on-street parking spaces and in city-owned garages, track when and where parking is available. Sensor data is uploaded wirelessly to SFpark's data feed and made available free to the public through an SFpark app, online, via text messaging and eventually through 511. WHAT IT M EAN S Less circling, double parking and congestion will mean more convenience for drivers, but SFpark also helps to achieve a host of other goals important to the city. A major test of many of the big planning ideas SPUR has been promoting, SFpark could improve Muni's speed and reliability, reduce collisions, make our neighborhood commercial areas both more livable and more economically competitive, and reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions. Under SFpark, the SFMTA is implementing a federally and regionallyfunded pilot demonstration of best-practice approaches to parking management. The goa l is to use a transparent, rules-based and data-driven approach to manage parking demand so drivers can find parking quickly rather than circling or double parking. And all it takes to access the program is a cell phone. Elements of SFpark include demand-responsive rate adjustments at 25 percent of the city's metered on-street parking spaces as well as 14 of its 20 public parking garages; real -time information available online and via cell phone - about open parking spots; new parking meters that make
18
Urbanist > December 2011
it easier to pay via debit or cred it card; better navigation in parking garages; and an emphasis on good design and communication . The project has also developed a data warehouse and business intelligence system, which is critical for processing parking occupancy data used to make rate-change recommendations, enabling comprehensive evaluation and, more broadly, positioning the SFMTA to use this tool and approach for more of its planning, management and operation of the city's transportation system. SFpa rk makes San Francisco the first city in the world to have put in place a full package of smart parking-management technology and policies in such an extensive area . If the pilot projects deliver significant benefits, it could set a powerful exa mple for other cities as an effective, easy-to-implement solution for congestion management and leadership. - Jay Primus
____I
1 12 .11
INSIDE SPUR
New Faces at SPUR Lauren Seyda Development Intern Lauren, a recent transplant from the Pacific Northwest, is passionate about how cities create desirable space. With a geography degree from Western Washington University, Lauren has conducted field research on salmon migration patterns and urban stream restoration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and has consulted with science education organizations on strategic business planning. She hopes to pursue a graduate degree in city planning and urban design. Michael Waldrep Video Production Intern Michael is a graduate of the film studies department at UC Berkeley and the new video intern at SPUR . He's worked with industrial robots and in women's fashion, has assisted on sexology documentaries and has handled wildly expensive movie cameras. He's also into urbanism, and thinks it'd be neat to do J.B. Jackson/Mike Davis-style reportage with a video camera. If you ever want to talk about Google Street View, he's your man. Katherine Bell Front Desk Ambassador Katherine is a recent addition to SPUR's front desk team. She received her B.A. in urban studies from the College of Wooster in Ohio and is now exploring what it means to be a Bay Area urbanist. Her current interests are in sustainable development, urban infill projects and public engagement projects.
Trafton Bean Public Policy Intern Trafton is a recent graduate of the University of Oregon with degrees in public policy and environmental studies. Born and raised on the Sa n Francisco Peninsula, he's excited to be working to make his home region greener and more sustainable. When not at SPUR, you can find him working as a policy intern with the SF Bike Coa lition and eagerly awaiting the Giants' next run for the World Series. Jesse Sleamaker Front Desk Ambassador Jesse is an SF native interested in how technology and planning can create more just and sustainable cities and urba n food systems. At his day job at The Hub, he helps entrepreneurs solve social and environmental challenges. For fun, he plays the fiddle, surfs and attempts to grow food. Jesse holds a B.A. from Northwestern, and a master's in environment, international and urban development from Cambridge. Alan Leung Front Desk Ambassador Prior to joining SPUR, Alan worked as a residential mortgage underwriter in Burlingame. Years of commuting up and down the Peninsula taught him the importance of developing job centers arou nd transportation hubs. At SPUR, he hopes to learn more about ways to make his native San Francisco a more liveable city. He holds a B.A. in political science from Reed College in Portland, Ore.
Urbanist > December 2011 19
URBAN
Light, sculpture celebrated in five PG&E substations
FIELD NOTES An archiveof cultural landscapes and observations compiled bySPU R members and friends. Send your ideas to Urban Field Notes editor Ruth Keffer at editor@spur.org.
Caseworker: Jessie Allen-Young
CASE STUDY #43 .
Shortly after moving to San Francisco, I was wandering the many neighborhoods and st reetscapes of the city, trying to get my bearings. One building in particular struck me - it was massive, with an outward Brutalist thrust. The style reminded me of some of the historic Fascist architecture of Italy. Along its base I found an engraving: the Pacific Gas and Electric Embarcadero Substat ion. Five years later, this building still fascinates me as a statement of pure facade/exterior skin architecture, with no need to obey an intensely complex program. Inside it is devoid of human presence, functioning only to house transformers to convert electricity to different voltages. After finding the Embarcadero Substation, I set out to find others. In some cities and towns substations are disguised as houses, but here in San Francisco, the facades are celebrated. Substations are peculiar because they do not engage a pedestrian or livable streetscape, and in these examples, they defy human scale. They can be purely sculptural forms, or forms that reinforce the ideals of an era and the company behind them. Since these buildings are all PG&E substations, the exterior lighting highlights the facades while showcasing the owner's product: electricity in the form of light. Jessie Allen-Young isanarchitectura l designer fascinatedby buildinguse(and the resulting wear and tear). Whilenot practicingandstudying architecture, or riding her biketoandfrom workacrosstheGolden Gate Bridge, Jessieistheeditorandlayoutgeekfor the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association'snewsletter.
Mission Substation. This substation at Mission and 8th Street, designed by William Merchant in 1948, is clad in smooth, dark composite travertine stone blocks. The eastern facade hastwo carved, WPA-style reliefs titled "Power" and "Light," created by Robert B. Howard, a notable Bay Area artist from this era. Larkin Substation. This 1962 substation.created by PG&E's own design team, was built in two stages out of concrete and steel. The exterior is made out of turquoiseand beigeconcrete with visible aggregate. The Eddy Street facade has a section composed of vertical bands of thinly cut stone that were lit from behind at night.The strikingresults are obvious in a 1964 photo, in which the company. with some disrega rd for light pollution, showcases its product.
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Embarcadero Substation. Built in 1973, this monochromatic, cast-concrete building on Folsom Street features slightly exposed aggregate that is not detectible to the human eye from across the wide street. Discoloration from smog helps accentuate its subtle curves and makes the building read as even more massive and brawny.
Substation J. This Beaux Arts buildingon Commercia l Street was my second find in my walking search for substations. With its monochromatic surface and minimal detailing, the station seems quiet and hidden away. Its location on a narrow alleymakes it hard to take in the whole building at once. In the midst of the bustle of the Financial District on a weekday, I was pleased to come acrossit. Designed by Frederick H. Meyer and Henry C. Vensano (a PG&E engineer and designer) in 1908 and added onto in 1914, it is now on the national historic register.
Jessie Street Substation. Designed by Willis Polk in 1907 and 1909, this substation is now the siteof the Contemporary Jewish Museum. (The building got an addition and interior remodel by renowned architect Daniel Libeskind in 2008). This Classical Revival building, with its red brickfacade, cast-iron windowsand white terra cotta architectural moldings, was originally a power generating station built in 1881. After being damaged in the 1906 fire, it was renovated twice by Polk to its current footprint and facade, and was converted into a substation.
Urbanist > December2011
21
URBAN DRIFT BUILDING INNOVATION UNDERGROUND A team of Mexican architects is pitching renderings of a 65-story "earthscraper" for proposed construction in Mexico City. If built, it would be the first of its kind, protruding 30 0 meters underground, housing both office and living space. Esteban Suarez of BNKR Arquitectura, the firm behind the proposa ls, explains that "there is very little room for more building in Mexico City ... so the only way is down." But at a projected cost of $8 00 million to build, it remains to be seen if this exercise in densifying the subterranean will take off. "Could 'Earthscraper"reallyturn architectureon its head?" George Webster, CNN, 10/27/2011
BIKING THE BIG EASY Check your rea r-view helmet mirror, Portland. New Orleans might just be the next holder of the "Bicycle-Friendliest City" title. Using approxi mately $100 million of federa l rebuilding money to repair 56 miles of the city's most heavily used roads, it has transformed its once troubled streets to create dense, mixed-used, bike- and pedestrian-friendly infrastructure. Pa inted bike lanes have been added to 15 streets, making for nearly 40 miles of bike-friendly roads to date. Since 2005, bike commuting has risen 84 percent and organized social rides have been launched. Despite the city's momentum, however, cyclists continue to fight traffic congestion, bike theft and reckless drivers. "Newroadspost-stormmakeNewOrleanscycling city:' AssociatedPress, 10/12/2011
22 Urbanist > December 2011
LIBYA'S TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT PLANS NEW CONSTRUCTION The death this past October of Muammar Gaddafi has quelled security issues in Libya and released frozen assets, opening the borders to new opportunities for development. The European construction industry is anticipating new work, though Libya is being advised to impose - and highly regulate - incoming contracts to ensure that calculated planning and sustainable building ensue. Libya's National Transitional Government is seeking European firms to assist with this construction (though without an official government, it is too early for Libya to sign these contracts) . Libya's Tripoli airport and Misrata hospital are the first planned projects. "Gaddafi'sdeathpromptsgo-ahead tor Libyan constructionprojects," ElizabethHopkirk, bdonline. co.uk, 10/24/2011
MONGOLIA GROWS GLACIER TO COOL ITSELF In November, the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator began conducting an ambitious "geoengineering trial" that will see the formation of an urban glacier that will cool the city throughout the summer months. The scientists behind the $700,000 project believe that the glacier will emit enough cool air to be pumped throughout the city in the summer, while also supplying valuable water resources for drinking and irrigation as the ice gradually melts in the hot temperatures. The Mongolian engineering firm ECOS & EM I
will begin "building" the glacier by forming artifical naleds essentially, meters-thick sheets of ice formed over rivers in the winter as water pressure breaks throu gh the ice envelope and the subsequent water seepage freezes. "Mongoliabidstokeepcitycool with 'ice shield' experiment," JonathanWatts, The Guardian, 11/15/2011
FARMVILLE FOR HOME ENERGY MANAGEMENT? Facebook has partnered with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Opower, a growing network of more than 60 utility companies across the country, to provide a way for the public to monitor its energy consumption. Expected for release in early 2012, a new app will allow users to access their home energyusage data from their provider and, once imported into the app, track their energy consumption, "compete" with
city news from around the globe
fellow users, and share energysaving tips. Commonwealth Edison (Chicago and environs), the city of Pa lo Alto, and Glendale Water & Power (Los Angeles County) are the first three utilities to sign on, allowing a combined total of 4 million customers to use the new app when it launches. "Facebook unveils'social energy' app," Matt Hickman, forbes.com, 10/18/2011
GOING FROM BLIGHT TO "BLOTS" That's the latest solution for shrinking cites. Across a handful of troubled Midwestern cities, homeowners in troubled neighborhoods are snapping up adjacent vaca nt lots for their own use, creating block-lots or "blots." Coined by Brooklyn designer firm Interboro, blotting is gaining traction, especia lly in Detroit which is working to reduce population density. "IsBlottingthe Best SolutionforShrinkingCities?", DavidLepeska, TheAtlanticCities, lilli/II
'" '!
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23
JainS PUR tad ay!
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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. -j
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654 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94 105-40 15 tel. 415.781.8726 fax 415.781.7291 info@spur.org www .spur.org
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SPUR Staff SPUR main number 415.781.8726 Editor of The Urbanist Allison Arieff x142 aarieff@spur.org Accountant Terri Chang x128 tchang@spur.org Public Programming Intern Noah Christman x122 publicprogramming@spur.org Publications Assistant Mary Davis x141 mdavis@spur.org Urban Center Director Diane Filippi x110 dfilippi@spur.org
Public Realm and Urban Design Program Manager Benjamin Grant x1l9 bgrant@spur.org Development Assistant Liza Hadden xl18 Ihadden@spur.org Sponsorships and Special Events Manager Kelly Hardesty x120 khardesty@spur.org Research and Volunteer Coordinator Will Heywood x136 wheywood@spur.org Public Programming Manager Gretchen Hilyard x122 ghilyard@spur.org Deputy Director Sarah Karlinsky x129 skarlinsky@spur.org
Development Director Arnie LaUerman x1l 5 alatterman@spur.org Development Associate Rachel Leonard xl 16 rleonard@spur.org Administrative Director Lawrence Li x134 lIi@spur.org Good Government Policy Director Corey Marshall x125 cmarshall@spur.org Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf xl 13 gmetcalf@spur.org Urban Center Event Manager Sue Meylan x130 smeylan@spur.org
This newslett er is printed on New Leaf Reincarnation paper: 100 % recycled fiber and 50 % post-consumer waste.
Publications and Communications Manager Karen Steen xl 12 ksteen@spur.org Sustainable Development Policy Director Laura Tam x137 Itam@spur.org Regional Planning Director Egon Terplan x131 eterplan@spur.org Assistant to the Executive Director Jennifer Warburg x1l7 jwarburg@spur.org Food Systems and Urban Agriculture Program Manager Eli Zigas x126 ezigas@spur.org