Promoting Growth in Downtown San Fran

A new report out from SPUR is urging more office development in downtown San Francisco. Quoting from the report...

Downtown San Francisco is the only employment node in the region where most people travel to work without bringing their own car. Downtown San Francisco is the node with by far the greatest near-term potential to accommodate regional employment growth with a low carbon footprint. In fact, if reducing emissions and the amount of driving was our only criterion, we would advocate a region that adds as much of its incremental growth as possible into San Francisco. Even if San Francisco retains its share of regional jobs (16 percent), the increase in driving and emissions in the suburbs will prevent the region from attaining climate change goals.

This report from SPUR is timely, not just for San Francisco but for cities throughout the U.S. because most of them face the same dilemma.  The idea that we can serve every suburban office park with transit or that we meet climate change goals if we don't change our pattern of development is just delaying the inevitable.

The report concludes that the current pattern of development "cannot continue if we wish to meet regional climate change goals. The necessary alternative is to increase the number of jobs in the region that are directly accessible by transit, preferably regional transit.

"This means channeling significant new job growth into our existing city centers, and particularly in San Francisco. Economic growth and job growth in San Francisco’s downtown knowledge economy is good for the city’s environment, economy and social equity.

"However, downtown San Francisco is running out of space for continued growth in office development. By some estimates, there is less than 13 million square feet of zoned capacity for office space in the downtown core. Further, the regional transit system bringing workers into downtown has major capacity constraints in key places.

"If we accept the notion that adding transit-accessible jobs in downtown San Francisco is an effective response to climate change, then we must make changes to prepare the downtown area to capture a growing share of regional jobs.

"San Francisco could choose to not allow the city to grow. Or we could give up on the downtown as a place for most of the job growth in San Francisco. But that would mean shrinking job opportunities for city residents and would render the region unable to meet its emissions targets. This no-growth direction for San Francisco would also lower the economic competitiveness of the region. The Bay Area needs a downtown San Francisco that is growing and healthy.

"To accommodate this additional growth, we may need to modify some of the assumptions underlying the planning principles that have governed and shaped the city’s growth. We also need a new downtown plan to properly plan for the future. If we allow low-density housing or other uses with a low employment density to take root in the downtown area, we run the risk of severely hobbling San Francisco’s options for the future.

"As we move forward to meet the future of downtown San Francisco, SPUR recognizes that even if we are able to secure the public, political and economic will to expand the downtown area, the changes that are necessary to maintain the vigor of the city and its downtown cannot be considered successful unless we also maintain the human and pedestrian-oriented features that grace the downtown area today. That is part of the magic of San Francisco — a magic that easily can be accommodated amid a growing and evolving city."

  

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