Andrew Nash
Vienna Transport Strategies

Useful San Francisco Websites

The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth largest metropolitan area in the United States. The region includes three major cities: San Francisco, San Jose (with the largest population), and Oakland. The region spreads from the vineyards of Napa County to Santa Clara County's Silicon Valley, including over 100 cities.

The Bay Area's regional planning organization is the Association of Bay Area Governments and regional transportation agency is the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission is responsible for planning along the San Francisco Bay. All these websites provide excellent planning information about the region and links to other organizations.

San Francisco Planning and Urban Research, or SPUR, is San Francisco's leading non-profit planning advocacy organization. SPUR's website provides links to many other planning organizations (city, regional, state, national, international) as well as links to SPUR's excellent monthly newsletter and position papers. SPUR holds brown-bag lunches most Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays of the year as well as other special events (see the SPUR website for details and schedule).

Greenbelt Alliance is the San Francisco Bay Area's regional land use planning advocacy organization. Greenbelt Alliance's objectives are to preserve the region's spectacular open space and encourage development of more livable cities. Both Greenbelt Alliance and SPUR were formed by the same group of far-sited citizens in 1958 led by Dorothy Erskine. Greenbelt Alliance's website also provides links to other planning organizations and their work.

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City Planning Education

The website www.mastersinurbanplanning.com has been created to help provide information about studying city planning at the Masters degree level. It's a nice resource if you want to learn more about the profession and universities.

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