Issue 7 of the San Francisco Public Press, a broadsheet full-color local newspaper, is now available  for just $1 at more than 50 retail outlets and through online mail order ($4).

SPECIAL REPORT  »  Growing Smarter: Planning for a Bay Area of 9 Million. Regional planners hope to turn a lot of the Bay Area into something more like San Francisco — walkable, BARTable and energy efficient. But the “smart growth” renaissance is facing stiff resistance from cities, and financial pressure from the cash-strapped California state government. Produced in collaboration with the CAGE Lab at UC Berkeley’s Geography Department, Earth Island Journal and Bay Nature Magazine.

Back issues are also available for mail order. Read select stories from previous issues: Issue 6 • Issue 5 • Issue 4 • Issue 3 • Issue 2 • Issue 1

Summer 2012

Tea partiers and Occupiers make strange bedfellows opposing sprawl control

Maureen Nandini Mitra, SF Public Press — Jun 21 2012 - 12:22pm

So far, Plan Bay Area — an ambitious regional blueprint for dense urban communities convenient for walking and public transit — seems to have more strident critics than defenders. Some libertarians, liberal Democrats, environmentalists, professional urban planners and anti-capitalist Occupiers have all found issue with parts of the plan, and the way its authors have sought public opinion.

Can San Francisco add 150,000 more people?

Alison Hawkes, SF Public Press — Jun 19 2012 - 10:55am

As the Bay Area struggles to meet sustainability goals, double-digit population growth presents a clear challenge to reducing the region’s ecological footprint. Residents must use resources more efficiently to counteract the addition of more than a million new residents. In many ways, it mirrors a challenge the planet is facing. Can population growth in San Francisco and the Bay Area be sustainable?

Cities resist regional plan to limit sprawl

Angela Hart, SF Public Press — Jun 13 2012 - 1:44pm

A high-profile effort to focus new Bay Area housing into energy-efficient transit villages is seen as unworkable even as it makes its public debut this summer, say urban planners, because regional government lacks the authority to make cities build dense urban neighborhoods. The three-decade Plan Bay Area, unveiled in May, is the product of more than two years of research on the region’s demographics, economy, transportation and architecture. Proponents say “smart growth” could be the future of the Bay Area — if regional agencies had either the legal tools to enforce the grand vision or enough money to make it worthwhile for cities to participate.

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