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Ideas
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Super Impacts on Super Bowl Cities
Whether you plan to watch this year’s Super Bowl for the game, the commercials, or for the much-anticipated Kendrick Lamar and SZA halftime show, it’s bound to be a spectacle. The Big Easy is hosting the big game on February 9th, and New Orleans is leveraging America’s most-watched sporting event to its advantage.
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Kamp featured in The New York Times
SHC’s sister company, Kamp, was recently featured in The New York Times. The piece highlights the disparities and discrimination that exists in the real estate and development field, particularly for women.
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Madison Triangle Redevelopment
In 2022, the City of Madison’s Community Development Authority (CDA) shared an ambitious plan to redevelop “the Triangle,” a pizza slice of land spanning approximately 10-acres near downtown. The project is well underway, but it will likely continue to experience redevelopment for years to come. In the meantime, the project represents an effort to provide additional affordable housing to the community.
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Adaptive Reuse in Action
Every year, as the leaves start to change and spooky season approaches, Spirit Halloween rises triumphantly from the grave and transforms strip malls across the U.S. As strip malls adapt to the shifting retail landscape, Spirit Halloween exemplifies how pop-up stores can offer creative solutions, if only for a season, to help bring struggling retail spaces back from the dead.
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Seattle’s Waterfront Gets a Makeover
On October 4, Seattle opened its long-anticipated Overlook Walk, a multi-billion dollar civic project that stretches across the Emerald City’s iconic waterfront. The project represents a massive investment in accessible, pedestrian-friendly, and sustainable design.
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Reaching for New Heights
Terminal 2 saw its busiest month ever this March. Overall, demand for travel has increased in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. Last month, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) launched a $263 million expansion of Terminal 2 at MSP, which will incorporate a variety of green building systems. Other airports across the country are also jumping on the sustainability train . . . or, er, plane.
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Diving into the History of Public Pools
The Cabot Street Bath in Boston was the first public pool in the US . . . well, as the name implies, it was really more of a giant bathtub. Recreational swimming supports mental and physical wellbeing and can promote water safety, but public swimming pools can be hard to find.
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United Village
If you’ve driven past Allianz Field in Saint Paul lately, you may have noticed a few changes. The 34.4-acre site will soon have new retail space, office buildings, and even a giant loon sculpture.
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The 2024 Paris Olympic Village
The 2024 Paris Olympic Village is designed for long-term, sustainable use. It represents an understanding of the impact that the Games have on residents and a departure from how Villages have historically been developed. It is not without its flaws, but Paris has demonstrated how the design and development of Olympic Villages can really go for the gold.
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Color-Blind Friendly Zoning Maps
Traditional zoning maps often rely heavily on color differentiation (red for retail, purple for industrial, yellow for residential, etc.), posing a challenge for individuals with color vision deficiency (CVD), commonly known as color blindness. Recognizing this issue, there are ways to create color-blind friendly zoning maps, ensuring that everyone can access and understand how land use in their community is organized.
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Fireworks are Fizzling Out
Cities like Salt Lake City, Boulder, and Tahoe City are switching to drone shows for for the Fourth of July for safety, environmental, and economical reasons, offering a reusable and sustainable alternative that still preserves the festive spirit. Fireworks, it seems, are fizzling out.
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Carbucks & Drive-Thru Bans
While convenient and staples of the American fast-food experience, drive-thrus can also impede traffic flow and put cyclists and pedestrians at risk. They are unlikely to disappear anytime soon, but as more cities like Minneapolis, St. Paul, or even Atlanta adopt bans and restrictions, drive-thrus may become a little less commonplace along American roadways.
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Rack Stars: Bike Parking for Commuters
The new SHC office has a variety of amenities and features – a coffee shop, lots of natural light, and . . . a well-placed bike rack. Bike parking can sometimes be difficult to find, but it’s a small and cost-effective way to encourage and support cyclists.
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It was time…for a move!
The past year has been full of change, challenges, and new opportunities. So, it seemed like the perfect time to pump up the chaos and move into a new office space!
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Celebrating Earth Day: St. Paul’s 38th Annual Citywide Spring Cleanup
This weekend, the City of St. Paul held its 38th annual Citywide Spring Cleanup. The event calls on volunteers to pick up litter in the City’s parks and streets to celebrate Earth Day and to tidy up before the warmer weather ahead. Volunteers gathered at 25 different sites around the City and were equipped with bags, gloves, and coffee before heading out.
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Not Just a Phase: The Impact of the 2024 Solar Eclipse on Small Towns
Cities in the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse experienced approximately four minutes of darkness as the moon stepped in front of the sun. It was a momentary and brief celestial event; however, the economic impact of the eclipse will likely linger in cities and towns across North America for months to come.
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Inflatable Tube Men
In 2008, the City of Houston prohibited the installation inflatable tube men along with other “attention getting devices.” Supporters of the ban argued that inflatable tube men were not only distracting, but also tacky and adversely impacted the city’s image. Whether you find them unsightly, distracting, or just plain silly, inflatable tube men are here to stay.
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The Magic Roundabout
For some, the Magic Roundabout in Swindon, England, represents traffic mitigation at its finest – for others, the five-swirl roundabout is an absolute terror.
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The Big Dill about Pickleball
Pickleball is America’s fastest growing sport. Cities across the country are scrambling to meet this surge in demand for court space, and they’re finding it in an unlikely place: Shopping malls.
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A Peat of Strength
Peatlands play a crucial role in regulating the climate, despite covering only around 3% of the Earth's land surface. As a result of their unique composition, peatlands act as vast carbon sinks and have the capacity to store significant amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.