By Megan Corcoran
The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice

As politicians search for a solution to our city’s growing violent crime rate, they should start by looking close to home for a compassionate and common-sense policy that will help protect San Francisco youth and families. By reforming our juvenile justice system, and keeping our children out of the dysfunctional statewide youth prisons run by the Department of Juvenile Justice, we can lower crime rates and improve lives by preventing troubled kids from becoming both the victims and the students of dangerous criminals. San Francisco is well placed to become a pioneering county in changing the manner in which juvenile justice reaches the community. Read more »

By Fabian Núñez
Speaker of the California State Assembly

Fighting global warning is a challenging situation. But we can take action right here at home. Last year, the legislature did its part by passing Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.This legislation is the gold standard for combating global warming. Several other states, and even the U.S. Congress, are using it as a template for their own action. I got involved in pushing the bill when even my 15-year old daughter had begun bugging me about what I was going to do about global warming. So I took it up – took on the special interests that fought and spent hard against it – and got the bill signed into law. Read more »

By David Harris and Andrew J. Rotherham

Ask any Mayor what his or her top priority is for the long term health of his or her city, and much more often than not they will say improving the quality of public schools.   Mayors understand that a city cannot thrive with broken or even sub-par public schools.   In too many of the nation’s urban areas students have a less than 50-50 chance of even finishing high school and educational achievement in the nation’s great cities remains far too low.  

Yet despite the centrality of public schools to a city’s civic health, few mayors have any formal statutory authority over the public schools located in their city, as school systems in most states are run by independent local school boards.  It is a paradox that vexes many mayors. Read more »

By Christopher Gardner
Author of The Pursuit of Happyness

Homelessness is an epidemic in this country that does not have a simple cause or a simple solution.  Most people think that alcoholism, drug addiction or mental conditions afflict everyone sleeping on the streets or in shelters.  While it’s true that these factors play a part for many who are chronically homeless, others, like me, work hard, stay clean, and still can’t make ends meet.  And when you have a family to look after, children who are depending on you to keep them safe, it becomes a more complicated crisis. Read more »

By Ann Bartz
Program Manager, BALLE

San Francisco should be more like Philadelphia or Bellingham, WA.  Why? Because by supporting strong networks of locally owned independent businesses working in various "building blocks" of the green economy – sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, local capital, zero-waste manufacturing, green building, independent media, and downtown retail – both cities are building healthy, diversified local economies. And a lot of greening is happening as a result. Read more »

By Robert Puentes
Fellow, Brookings Institution

San Francisco should take a hard look at how it accommodates parking in the city. While dense, the car culture is still promoted by providing acres of parking lots at odds with its transit-oriented approach. Increasing the charges for street parking would go a long way to promoting – and paying for – better alternatives.  

Certainly change will not happen overnight, but change on the local level is essential and is the only way to find workable solutions to addressing the climate change crisis. Read more »

By Anni Chung
President & CEO, Self-Help for the Elderly

On March 20, 2007, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will either approve or reject the Google-Earthlink WiFi contract which, when implemented (target completion date is end of 2007), will provide universal Internet access to all San Franciscans. The Board of Supervisors’ action to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a feasibility study – and another $10-$20 million to build the network if the Supervisors should vote for the municipally-owned version in March – is not based on sound judgment and does not reflect the sentiments of the people who have spoken at the public hearings to date. Read more »

By Matt Tuchow

Since Mayor Newsom took office in January 2004, the City has housed more than 2,430 homeless individuals in permanent housing with wrap-around services to address mental illness, drug and alcohol addiction and lack of job skills, and 95 percent of them are still housed. That is a great achievement, but to contain the problem of homelessness we need to hit at all of its root causes – including the prevention of homelessness among kids graduating out of foster care. Read more »

By Gabriel Metcalf
Executive Director, SPUR

It's counterintuitive, but maybe the best way for Muni to save money is to stop collecting it.

It's one big idea in a list of big ideas that the Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), the quasi-independent department that controls our transportation system, should consider.

If we were to make Muni free, there would be a great deal of questions to address. How do you keep the buses from becoming roving homeless shelters or teenage hangouts? How can we make sure people value what they don't pay for? Can Muni handle the extra passengers free Muni would attract? Where will Muni store the extra buses they may need to handle the added passenger load. If we consider Muni a public utility, what is the best way to fund it? Read more »

By Matthew E. Kahn
UCLA Institute of the Environment

As Billy Graham once said, “The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about heaven while I'm here.”

Achieving urban sustainable “green growth” is now a hot research and policy topic. A city that can attract the footloose-skilled to live and work will continue to be a hotbed of intellectual innovation and growth. But Urban “greenness” is not a free lunch. The pursuit of urban greenness (through growth controls and housing regulations) does have unintended consequences that introduce important equity issues. Read more »