This November, Alameda County voters will decide the fate of a pair of transportation and land use measures: Measure B, the reauthorization of a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects, and Measure D, an urban growth boundary initiative sponsored by the Sierra...
The Transportation Choices Forum and Urban Ecology recently released a report entitled North Livermore: Last Chance for Smart Growth. This report lays out detailed “Smart Growth” alternatives to a major Bay Area suburban development for the first time. The...
When does a big box become a monster? That question is at the heart of several land use battles in the Bay Area, where cities and counties are challenging retailers such as Wal-Mart on “super-sized” big box stores that eat up open space, generate heavy...
* Mission Housing Development Corporation raised $1.9 million to build UE’s community-oriented design for the 16th Street BART Plaza, a major transit hub in San Francisco’s Mission District. * With San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) and the...
Transportation tops the list of problems in Santa Clara County. A few weeks ago, a proposal was made for a $3.76 billion transportation sales tax to address some of these problems. This sales tax would run from 2006 (when the current measure expires) until 2026. It...
Mayor Jerry Brown faces a challenging context for his 10K Initiative, which would bring 10,000 new residents to downtown Oakland. The average two-bedroom apartment now costs well over $1,000, more than 35% of the average Oakland household’s income. Since 1995,...
On a sunny day in October, forty members of Urban Ecology, Greenbelt Alliance, and local community activists toured downtown Petaluma and discussed the city’s plans for river development and revitalization in the city’s center. This North Bay city began as...
Urban Ecology is pleased to welcome graduate student Egon Terplan for the summer. Terplan has finished his first year in the master’s program of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley, where his focus is housing and regional planning. Terplan relishes the...
Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition Fair Share Housing Campaign Platform Drafted and signed by: California Affordable Housing Law Project, Greenbelt Alliance, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, Urban Ecology The Bay Area Transportation...
Jess Wendover started at Urban Ecology in August 2003. She is the recipient of one of five annual Frederick P. Rose Architecture Fellowships, a national program that places new architects with organizations that work in low-income communities. The three-year...
This has been a year of transition and revitalization at Urban Ecology. The Board of Directors and staff spent much of 2003 developing a new strategic plan. The result is new mission and visions statements – see below – and a re-tooling of the way we...
In the summer of 2003, Urban Ecology held a community workshop in Oakland’s Eastlake district to solicit ideas for improving the local open space, Clinton Park. At a lively workshop conducted in four languages, about 50 residents and merchants spoke passionately...
Welcome to the first edition of a new update from Urban Ecology! In December, we polled you, our members, and here is what we heard: – UE does a lot of worthwhile things, but you care most about the planning we provide to low-income neighborhoods and the...
If you’ve ever rented one of City CarShare’s sporty, green VW Beetles, you already know that the service is convenient, economical and even fun to use. Now, a long-term study of the nonprofit organization by researchers at UC Berkeley has revealed that its...
Held on January 29, the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition’s symposium, Community Vision: Regional Action, drew more than 180 activists and elected leaders from around the region. Keynote speaker Congresswoman Barbara Lee detailed federal legislation...
Nearly $30 million could be available to Bay Area cities and counties this spring to build livable neighborhoods as part of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Transportation for Livable Communities program. UE is reviewing the seven-year-old TLC...
Urban Ecology is pleased to announce the release of our Telegraph-Northgate neighborhood plan. Working with community members, the City of Oakland, and the Telegraph-Northgate Neighborhood Association (TNNA), UE has helped this low-income neighborhood, just north of...
How do people who speak five different languages talk about a common future for their neighborhood? Translation. Not just translation from one language to another, but translation from the language of planners to that of everyday people. This kind of translation...
After two years of planning, the city of Fremont has crafted a vision to create an intimate, tree-lined downtown with shops, restaurants, offices and housing. The conceptual plan proposes dividing the 430-acre central business district into sub-areas, including a...
On November 3 Tri-Valley voters defeated the CAPPs, a trio of closely-watched, nationally significant land use initiatives, designed to dramatically alter the planning process and ultimately curb residential development in Livermore, Pleasanton, and San Ramon. Because...
On April 5, Urban Ecology organized the third in a series of community workshops in Telegraph-Northgate, a low-income neighborhood that lies just north of downtown Oakland. Nearly three dozen residents and merchants gathered to review design recommendations developed...
Mayor Jerry Brown’s call for large-scale development in downtown Oakland — known locally as “10K” — has been covered in media around the country. Many longtime Oakland observers are glad for the gleam he has brought to Oakland’s...
Linking land use patterns to healthy lifestyles is increasingly important, especially in low-income areas where access to parks is often limited. UE is addressing this issue by designing and advocating for a green recreational corridor in East Oakland that will link...
