Rick Koster offers weekly lists of ideas, notions and things that must be seen to be believed.

Watching the Masters last weekend, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels between Augusta National Golf Club and the landscaping at my own house.

Augusta Highlight #1. Magnolia Lane – the main driveway to the clubhouse, featuring 60 of the titular trees on either side of the boulevard.

Koster Property Highlight #1. The Corridor of Weeds and Garbage – a thin strip of carefully tended debris and thorn-vines along the rear fence.

Augusta Highlight #2. The Flower Bed at Founders Circle – The Masters logo writ large in a glorious display of butter-yellow blooms.

Koster Property Highlight #2. The Window Box of Spiders – Our paint-peeling planters were designed for tropical perennials. Alas, they seem to grow only spiders.

Augusta Highlight #3. Ike’s Pond – General Eisenhower selected the spot for a gorgeous fish pond on the club’s par-three course.

Koster Property Highlight #3. The Trickling Creek of Sewage – Despite the efforts of engineers and plumbers, there is a quasi-permanent marsh of creepy water flowing through the front yard.

When people call or inquire about landscape design or extreme makeover ideas, they almost always say they would like to have a colorful, low-maintenance, water conserving landscape.

They may use the term Xeriscape, which indicates they are familiar with the concept of dry landscaping.

I respond by informing them you can have a water conserving landscape that provides colorful, four-season interest featuring a diverse range of plantings. After all, I am a horticulturist, and to me a landscape without plants is, well, a pretty desolate, lifeless one at best.

By the time I get onsite, if mention of removing a lot of turf and replacing it with gravel comes up, I clarify that a certain amount of turf might actually be OK, so a discussion on a desirable turf to mulch ratio ensues.

Keeping large areas of gravel debris free or weedless is nearly impossible even with landscape fabric underneath. It’s hard to dig persistent weeds out of 1½-inch sized gravel, and almost mandates that chemical weed killers be applied regularly. Most people now realize that herbicides are not the panacea once thought due to their detrimental effect on the health of humans, animals, the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Turf areas can be reduced and replaced with larger garden beds and hardscapes, but you can also switch to a native grass like blue grama or buffalo grass if it fits in with the rest of the landscape. For a new bluegrass lawn, improving the soil by tilling in 3 cubic yards of compost is the best thing you can do. For established yards, aerating at least once a year in spring or fall when the ground is moist will help create a healthier, greener lawn.

Going Xeric may reduce your maintenance somewhat, but it will not totally eliminate it with regards to plants. Most nursery shrubs that have been breed for their special features require some sort of attention after four or more years, often in the way of a rejuvenation pruning to remove older branches or trunks. Perennials still need annual spring cleanups.

However, if we can let go of the concept of having a Better Homes and Garden looking landscape, then native plants can be used. While they look at home in their native setting, the tricky part is in aesthetically integrating them into an urban landscape. Drought tolerant native shrubs are useful in filling in outlying areas of our property as their winter appearance may seem slightly rangy. This way, you can also take advantage of their value in attracting wildlife.

Or, you can go totally native and while still using the tough shrubs as background plants, you can carefully draw the eye to the foreground with the use of boulders, ornamental grasses and colorful perennials.

As for water conservation, once an automatic irrigation system is set up, annual checks will help assure the water is going where it is needed and when.

Xeriscape’s seven principles will help conserve moisture and hopefully you’ll also have the additional benefit of reducing your landscape maintenance if attention is put toward the design, plant and mulch choices and other components.

Robyn Dolgin of Wild Iris Living offers consultations, designs and main- tenance for edible and ornamental landscapes, ranging from courtyards to small acreages. She can be reached at (970) 493-5681, robyn.dolgin@ gmail.com or WildIrisLiving. com.

Ideas 4 Landscaping Review | Build a Wonderful House with Helen Whitfield’s Design Collection – V-kool

PRWEB.COM Newswire

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) April 16, 2014

Ideas 4 Landscaping is a brand new book, providing people with a lot of wonderful landscaping ideas and videos that help them design every corner of their own house. This book is created by Helen Whitfield – an educator and a member of ANLA. She has spent years researching and studying to create this brand new landscaping designs collection. The author states that this book is proven useful, so people should not concern about it. After Helen Whitfield introduced this book, she received a lot of positive replies from happy customers. Therefore, author Lien Nguyen from the site Vkool.com released the Ideas 4 Landscaping review, showing people whether or not this product is worth buying.

The Ideas 4 Landscaping review published on the site Vkool.com shows readers the basic information about an entire collection of landscaping ideas. This book is really useful for people who want to design their own house. Within this guide, people will find a lot of garden landscape designs with pictures and illustrations. People will get ideas for any type of garden they want. The author provides users with a lot of designs for back yard, front yard, and garden.

Lien Nguyen from the site Vkool.com says: “This book is a useful assistant for people who want to design their own house. Ideas 4 Landscaping is very special compared to other resources that are currently sold on the market. Buying this product, customers will get 2 months to try it and 4 exclusive bonuses: “How To Grow Organic Vegetables “, “Save On Energy Costs – Green Home Guide”, “Landscaping Secrets Revealed Guide”, and “120 Premium Landscaping Videos”. If people do not feel satisfied after trying the designs that are contained in this book, they will get all their money back.”

If people want to read the full review of Ideas 4 Landscaping book, they can visit the site: http://vkool.com/ideas-4-landscaping/.

If people want to know more information about this book, they should access to the official site.

About author Lien Nguyen – the one who wrote this Ideas 4 Landscaping review: Lien Nguyen is currently a writer working for the Vkool Company. She has precious experiences and enthusiasm on writing interesting and informative articles. If people want to contact Lien Nguyen, they should counsel her through email.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/ideas-4-landscaping/review/prweb11768996.htm

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DERBY Edward Mwelwa, a Derby resident who immigrated to the United States from Zambia in 2001, said this week he knew attaining the American Dream would not be a simple journey.

The father of two is an accountant who for the past several years has offered tax preparation help and tax planning for individuals and small businesses with his home-based company, EDM Accounting and Taxes.

He decided he wanted to become a bookkeeper so he could expand his services.

Mwelwa said he came to the United States as a refugee from Zambia after being in what he called “a difficult situation.” He said the country was “in political transition” and speaking about it brings back difficult memories.

Mwelwa said he has had to overcome the stigma he felt coming from a Third World country. “Despite rough times, I’m very forward-looking.”

He said he works hard in order to set a good example for his children.

Mwelwa said he has “a passion” for accounting and bookkeeping. He recently graduated from Universal Accounting Center’s Professional Bookkeeper Program.

“Bookkeeping should be looked at as an investment, not as an expense,” he said.

In addition to working with numbers, Mwelwa held a lot of other jobs as he worked toward his goals.

“I came here in 2001, and my family joined me in 2005,” Mwelwa said. He worked in landscaping and a variety of temporary jobs until he landed a position 10 years ago with Latex International in Shelton.

“It has been a lot of work, it takes time (to grow a business),” he said. His goal is to have “10-20 bookkeeping clients” by the end of this year.

“Accounting is a business of trust,” Mwelwa said.

Orange resident James Murphy, a tax client who knew Mwelwa because he also works at Latex International, called Mwelwa a “great guy.”

Murphy said he is a conscientious worker and he’s glad he has used Mwelwa’s tax preparation services for the past two years. “I wish him the best with his business.”

Have questions, feedback or ideas about our coverage? Connect directly with the editors of the New Haven Register at AsktheRegister.com.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland will soon have a completed set of construction drawings for a radical, $30 million makeover of Public Square, the city’s historic but gray and tired-looking downtown center.

What it needs now is the civic will – and the cash – to get the project done quickly, with construction starting this fall.

So says the city’s Group Plan Commission, the civic body appointed by Mayor Frank Jackson in 2010 to enhance public spaces around the city’s new casino, convention center and Global Center for Health Innovation.

Leaders of the commission, which released the newest and most refined version of their plans exclusively to The Plain Dealer, are trying to create a sense of urgency so the project doesn’t languish the way other recent efforts to improve the city’s public spaces have.

Urgency is needed because, although leaders of the commission say negotiations with potential funders are going well, they haven’t yet identified specific donations or pledges.

“We believe in the coming months we’re going to be able to announce, on a scheduled basis, more details on our financing to achieve the goal” of a fall groundbreaking, said lawyer Anthony Coyne, chairman of the Group Plan Commission and the city’s Planning Commission.

The pitch from Coyne and other supporters is that work needs to start on the square this fall to boost the city’s burgeoning downtown revival – and also to help attract a national political convention in 2016.

Because the project will take 18 months to build, it can’t be finished by the presidential election year unless construction starts within months.

“We think there’s a sense of urgency that comes with a deadline,” said Jeremy Paris, the newly appointed executive director of the commission. “We’ve looked at the potential of holding conventions in 2016, and that’s our deadline.”

The project, designed by the leading American landscape architect James Corner, calls for routing automobile traffic counterclockwise around the square, and removing the two blocks of Ontario Street that run north-south through it.

Superior Avenue, which runs east-west, would be narrowed in the square from 77 to 44 feet and would remain open to buses, but it could be closed on a regular basis to unify the square for concerts, performances, farmers markets and other events.

Features of the plan include a cafe, a “splash zone” and a speaker’s terrace south of Superior Avenue, along with a broad lawn for movies and concerts to the north.

A meandering, ribbon-like path would trace the park’s perimeter, unifying the big central spaces with more intimate garden and seating areas in the corners.

Amenities would include streamlined and gracefully curved concrete benches and seating walls, granite cobblestones arrayed in a scalloped pattern, and sleek, contemporary-style lighting.

In the winter, a temporary skating rink could be installed.

Beloved bronze statues of city founder Moses Cleaveland and progressive Mayor Tom Johnson will be positioned on the centers of the north and south edges of the park.

The towering 1894 Soldiers and Sailors Monument dedicated to veterans of the Civil War would be surrounded with new paving and lighting aimed at making it look more accessible and integrated in the square.

The idea, overall, is to unify a public space now carved into quadrants of greenery and monuments that are marooned by the flow of traffic and surrounded by hard surfaces.

The project would remove 50,000 square feet of pavement, and increase green space inside the 5.5-acre heart of the square by 40 percent. The new landscaping would feature 300 trees, 50 more than the square currently has.

“The big picture is that we’re trying make a place that is recognized and loved as the new heart and the new civic center for Cleveland,” Corner said Wednesday in a telephone interview, speaking from his office in New York.

The proposed revision of the square, initiated originally by the Downtown Cleveland Alliance in 2009, would be the first revamp since new gardens and landscaping were installed in the 1980s.

The project is also part of a global movement among cities that view parks and public spaces as essential tools to attract new residents and to boost their economies.

Corner, who co-designed New York’s wildly popular High Line park, a greenway set atop a disused elevated rail line on Manhattan’s lower West Side, is a major contributor to the trend.

“We’ve been seeing this in Seattle; Chicago; Santa Monica, [Calif.]; Memphis, [Tenn.]; and New York,” he said. “All these cities are making big investments in the public realm, and they’re doing it in an effort to try to make their cities distinctive from other cities. They’re competing for residents, businesses, conventioneers, tourists.”

Corner’s design for Public Square will be ready for additional public review by May or June, said Ann Zoller, executive director of LAND Studio, the nonprofit Cleveland organization carrying out much of the Group Plan Commission’s work.

The drawings would then be presented to the city’s Planning Commission and the downtown-area Design Review Committee this summer, and would be ready for bids soon thereafter.

What happens next depends on whether Coyne, Paris and members of the commission can raise $30 million over the next five or six months.

The commission estimates that it will need $60 million in all for three major projects, including the Public Square makeover, enhancements to the downtown Mall and construction of a pedestrian bridge from the north end of the Mall across railroad tracks and the Shoreway to North Coast Harbor and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

As part of the total, the commission wants to set aside $7 million to $10 million to create a reserve fund for long-term maintenance of Public Square, the Mall and the pedestrian bridge.

Annual withdrawals from the fund would be added to existing funds dedicated to maintenance of Public Square and the Mall, Zoller said.

So far, the city and Cuyahoga County have pledged $10 million each toward the pedestrian bridge, with another $5 million recently contributed from the state’s capital budget.

Paris said that the $25 million in public money should help persuade corporations, foundations and other private donors to come forward with money for Public Square.

Coyne also said the city is considering helping the project with a TIF, or tax increment financing, based on value added to the Higbee Building by the recent addition of the Horseshoe Casino.

The school portion of the tax increase would not be diverted to Public Square, he said.

The Public Square project is first in line among the commission’s projects in part because the design has advanced beyond those of the other components.

Planning for the pedestrian walkway will await completion of a parking study intended to determine whether an additional garage is needed near North Coast Harbor, Coyne said.

Enhancements to the Mall can’t be designed until plans are completed for the county’s new convention center hotel.

Above all, backers of the Public Square effort want to avoid the fate of other plans for parks, trails and civic improvements that have moved slowly in recent years, creating a sense that the city can’t follow through on big ideas for public spaces.

“This is absolutely going to get done,” Coyne said. “I’ve seen too many things in this town not get done.”

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WILMINGTON — Hard to believe, but the semi-detached stucco house in this village-like neighborhood in Wilmington started out as worker housing – for the man in the gray flannel suit.

During the early 20th century, the young publicly held DuPont Co. was going through a historic growth spurt as it supplied explosives to the European Allies with the company’s assets quadrupling during the war years, according to Adrian Kinnane in “DuPont: From the Banks of the Brandywine to the Miracles of Science.” The company needed to import managerial and professional talent, but Wilmington was experiencing a housing shortage.

Enter DuPont, the real estate developer. The company bought a parcel called Wawaset Park at the intersection of Greenhill and Pennsylvania that had been a horse-racing track and fairgrounds. It had the advantage of being well-located between the du Pont family estates in the Greenville area and the company’s new headquarters on Rodney Square in Wilmington, according to Carol E. Hoffecker in “Corporate Capital: Wilmington in the Twentieth Century.”

“This tract of land was ideally located for white-collar employees: a street car line for quick commuter transportation downtown was within easy walking distance,” according to the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places.

Wawaset Park, a “suburb set within the city,” was born.

As happened with the development of Rodney Square, DuPont, which was then led by the du Pont family, worked behind the scenes to buy the land that became the housing community. John J. Raskob, the right-hand man of company president Pierre S. du Pont, bought shares in the Wawaset Park Co., the landowner.

DuPont executive Frank McCormick was given the job of figuring out what company employees needed and desired in their housing, according to the national register documents.

McCormick, who had lived in Roland Park in Baltimore in a house designed by Edward Palmer, was instrumental in getting Palmer hired as the Wawaset Park architect and planner, according to the register documents. The design of Roland Park was influenced by the ideas of Frederick Law Olmsted, the famous American landscape architect who believed a design should respect what is known as the “genius of a place.”

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Palmer broke with the city’s grid pattern, designing curving streets that give the community its village-like feel. The architectural styles ranged from Tudor cottages to Georgian mansions. To keep the integrity of the design, the company drew up restrictions.

“The DuPont Building Corporation retained the power to enforce the deed restrictions until 1944, despite the fact that they did not own the property,” the national register document says.

Construction began on Wawaset Park in early 1918 with the first homeowners celebrating Christmas in their new homes, according to the register nomination. Initially, DuPont planned for about 100 houses in a variety of styles and priced for middle- to upper-income buyers, according to Hoffecker.

The smallest houses went for $6,000, plus $1,500 for the lot. The big, free-standing homes sold for up to $20,000, not including the cost of the land, according to national register documents. DuPont employees were required to put 10 percent down and they were given a 10-year 5 percent mortgage.

Garages were not included, but buyers could add at an additional cost, according to the historic register documents. DuPont’s sales material was careful to point out the community was served by trolley lines and was within walking distance of stores and schools, Hoffecker said.

“Wawaset was, in effect, a suburb within the city. Yet it was more closely linked to the trolley car era than to the emerging era of the automobile,” Hoffecker writes. “The roadways were so narrow as to almost preclude the parking of cars. In all of these ways Wawaset represented not the beginning of a new era of construction, but rather the end of an old one; for by World War I, Wilmington, like the rest of America, had gone automobile-mad.”

According to the national register document, the community didn’t sell like hot cakes and DuPont dropped the prices for the first 125 sold.

The community was enhanced by hundreds of elm trees, some over 60 feet tall, according to the register nomination. Although the majestic trees were decimated by Dutch elm disease, the streets are still tree-lined with oak and other mature trees.

By 1921, nearly all the original 95 homes were sold, according to the national register. That year, DuPont sold the remaining lots to another company, which then sold off lots to local builders.

The house for sale at 1 Crawford Circle was one of the original DuPont houses, built in 1919. The three-story semi-detached home is at the end of a row of three houses. Completely renovated by the current owner, visitors might wonder what the first owner, Ferdinand Gilpin, would think of it today.

The galley kitchen has been updated to have granite countertops and 42-inch cabinets. The bathrooms were gutted and renovated. The owners turned one of the three bedrooms on the second floor into a large dressing room and closet. The master suite is on the third floor.

Patsy Morrow of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox Roach talks about the house and Wawaset Park:

Q: The houses in Wawaset are older, but it’s still very desirable, isn’t it?

A: I’ve been selling real estate for 30 years and I lived here and it’s just as popular as it ever was.

Q: Why is that?

A: It’s eclectic, almost European. There are different size houses, different ages of homeowners, winding streets, it’s a community within the city. Yet, you’re close to shopping, schools, downtown.

Q: It looks like the owners did a lot to rehab this house, including the kitchen and bathrooms.

A: It’s in move-in condition. It’s going to be perfect for a person who can appreciate that although it’s not huge, there’s a lot of space – the sunroom, the living room. Even though it’s an attached house, you don’t feel like it is.

Q: I understand the owner took landscaping courses that was important in the creation of the yard.

A: Yes, (she) took classes at Longwood Gardens and that helped quite a bit in (the) selection and location of plant material.

To suggest interesting spaces contact Maureen Milford at (302) 324-2881 or mmilford@delawareonline.com.

THE PROPERTY

ADDRESS: 1 Crawford Circle

SIZE: About 1,400 to 1,600 square feet

BEDROOMS: 3

BATHS: 2 full

PRICE: $364,500

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –

Some Santa Barbara water users are expected to pay big bills after July 1, if they don’t cut back.  The rate increase is expected to be approved in June and the goal is to encourage residents to save what’s left of the city’s supply during the serious drought.

The city says the water fees will not be a heavy burden on the lower water users, but the  rate structure will add a large increase to the monthly bill for customers who use the most water.

Leslie Levy has drought tolerant plants around her home in Santa Barbara.  She planted them a year ago and is not worried about the new rates or her water bill.  She says the plants have taken hold, and use little or no water.

In her back yard there’s a small patch of grass and some fruit trees, along with lavender and succulents.  She says it has a “soft” feel and still looks attractive.

Levy says at first the plants looked odd to her,  but they seem to “take care of themselves.”

Some ideas for plants came after a driving tour of Santa Barbara to look at other properties. “There are some wonderful plants”(in Santa Barbara and Montecito), said Levy.   

She says a landscape designer helped to pick the plants, and make the layout.

The city and many water districts locally offer a free inspection of your property to see where you can make water savings from your faucets to your landscaping.

For more information go to:  http://www.sbwater.org/

DETROIT –

If you need some ideas for getting your lawn ready for the hammock, here are some tips from H-D Landscaping – who were featured Thursday morning on Local 4 New Today.

Cleaning up – Leaves and trash

Clean up all the leftover leaves and trash that have accumulated in the landscape over the winter. Cleaning up litter removes hiding places for bugs that can attack your plants later. Add the leaves and other organic debris to your compost pile.

 

Plants and tree trimming

Most trees and shrubs benefit from annual pruning.  It keeps them in shape, gets rid of dead and diseased wood and encourages new growth.  But not all trees and shrubs should be pruned early, especially some of the flowering ones.  Pruning them early in the spring would mean losing some blossoms.  But sometimes it’s easier to prune when you can see the shape of the plant, before the branches are covered by leaves.  Trees and shrubs that are in need of a good shaping could sacrifice a few blooms to be invigorated by a spring pruning.

 

The grass

After a long winter your lawn needs to be mowed, aerated and fertilized. It’s a good time to patch in or reseed bare spots.  Walk around your yard and look for bare spots in the mulched beds. Add mulch to areas that are thin. If you have gravel mulch in your beds rake the beds to even out the gravel.

 

Lawn care mistakes

Failure to Have a Plan

A cleanup plan for example, Planting plan…. try to sketch a rough plan for one large area of your yard, and put all your energy into implementing that plan this year. The idea is to tackle large projects in phases. Don’t start a landscaping project without a plan. Decide on a specific theme or look and then draw it out on paper. Figure out where you want to put your plants and shrubs in relation to the shape and style of your house. Design a look when completed that fosters a  harmonious design.

 

Picking the Wrong Plants

Just because a plant looks pretty doesn’t mean it actually belongs in your yard. You have to take into consideration your particular backyard, with filtered light or shade, and what’s going to work best for you. If it’s a really hot, sunny spot, maybe you want to go with a succulent. Get a great landscaping book for your area to help you figure out what to plant and when, as well as how and when to fertilize.

 

Planting in the Wrong Place

Improper plant placement is another common mistake, you need to remember how big the plant or shrub could get and how much space they are going to need. Being shortsighted is a common problem because many people don’t know what the eventual growth of their plants will be. You need to find out how they spread, how they reproduce and what type of maintenance they require. Also think about focal points – choose something that’s going to look good year-round.

 

Overlooking Maintenance

Part of planning a flower garden is also planning time to maintain it. Make up a maintenance schedule and abide by it. Landscaped beds need to be weeded at least once or twice a month, at minimum. If you don’t have the time to take care of your landscaped beds, consider hiring someone to maintain them. 

Note: Spring time is a great time to evaluate your property and create a landscaping plan for  the season. Adopting these four basic principals during the spring planting season, a homeowner can create curb appeal that will look great year after year.

Over the last 47 years, Southwest Airlines has built a vibrant-if a little goofy-airborne community. Now some of that culture is fueling urban improvements on the ground. Southwest’s new initiative called the Heart of the Community is working to build parks and other public spaces in all of the 90 cities the airline flies to, thanks to a partnership with the Project for Public Spaces.

“Southwest has always been a very people-centric airline,” says to Marilee McInnis, Southwest’s senior manager of culture and communications. “We’ve always been associated with community and taking people from place to place.”

A few years ago, the company was looking for a more sustained way to make a difference in those communities and stumbled upon the work of the Project for Public Spaces. Southwest realized that the organization’s concept of placemaking-working closely with nonprofits and community groups to improve public and civic spaces-fit perfectly into their mission, says McInnis: “We loved the idea that the process of placemaking was all about creating places around the ideas and wants of people who live and work there.”

Since 2013, three parks have been built or renovated in Detroit, Providence, Rhode Island, and San Antonio as part of a pilot program, and grants have also helped fund the research and publication of a white paper at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning. In addition, the pilot projects have become case studies, shared on PPS’s website.

Earlier this month the partnership unveiled its latest project, a revitalized Travis Park in San Antonio, where Southwest paid for new electrical infrastructure, a bike-sharing station, and general furniture, landscaping, and maintenance updates. The 2.6-acre park was selected for both its central location and its history-it’s one of the oldest municipal parks in the country, and was in desperate need of a refresh.

But Southwest also has emotional ties to the park: It’s located right across the street from the hotel where co-founders Herb Kelleher and Rollin King first scrawled the business plan for Southwest on a cocktail napkin.

Here’s the important difference between Southwest’s engagement-which doesn’t have a specific dollar amount attached-and simply feeding charitable gifts to a nonprofit partner: Southwest isn’t planning to toss some trees into a town square and split.

Part of the grant funds for each space are going towards programming to make sure the parks are maintained, well-used, and loved. That means classes, events, festivals, and even community clean-up days will all be spearheaded by the airline.

This is also where Southwest is able to offer another key component: The volunteer power of its almost 45,000 enthusiastic employees, who are always looking for ways to give back, says McInnis.

Two things seem especially promising about Southwest’s approach. First, partnering with a group like Project for Public Spaces, which is so established and well-respected in this area, is very smart. PPS will work with the airline to outline more opportunities in its 90 cities and also vet local groups like San Antonio’s Center City Development Office, which can represent the needs of stakeholders and act as stewards of the spaces. The plan is to accelerate existing ideas and programs, not to start from scratch.

Second, placemaking is a very smart way for a company-and specifically an airline-to invest their money. Instead of say, sending money off to a vague-sounding charity, they are actually impacting the physical appearance and quality of life in the cities they are working in, which in turn are making them better destinations for customers.

McInnis had an even better take on why this was important when I asked her about it. “These cities are where our customers visit,” she said. “But also where our employees live and work.” [Project for Public Spaces]