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Honolulu’s coastal Ala Moana Boulevard is a critical road in the Hawaiian capital, but it’s also a major hindrance. With six lanes of fast-moving traffic and few easily accessible crossing points, it’s effectively a hurdle between the city and its main public space, Ala Moana Park, and the broad beach there. Now, a stunning new pedestrian bridge has opened to make it easier to cross that rushing road. Winding its way from the edge of downtown Honolulu over the highway to a boat harbor and the corner of Ala Moana Park, the pedestrian bridge is an elegant piece of urban infrastructure, accented by artwork and connected to a series of paths cutting through a lush tropical landscape. It’s part of Victoria Ward Park, a two-phase publicly accessible open space connected to Ward Village, the 60-acre mixed use development that aims to redefine the urban realm in this part of the city. Developed by Howard Hughes, Ward Village is a blank slate development on former warehouse land that will add, over the course of decades, more than 5,000 units of housing, nearly 1 million square feet of retail, and more than three acres of public greenspace. Several condo buildings are fully occupied and many future condos are already pre-sold, representing more than $6 billion in revenue, according to Howard Hughes’ 2024 annual report. Beyond its Honolulu project, the company made more than $1.75 billion in revenue in 2024, according to Pitchbook. [Photo: courtesy Ward Village] Building a bridge to downtown Greenspace, primarily in the form of Victoria Ward Park, is a key part of the company’s strategy for luring residents and businesses, and turning Ward Village into a new model for urban development in Honolulu. “A goal for Ward Village is to make the overall neighborhood significantly more walkable, comfortable, and safe,” says Doug Johnstone, president of the Hawaii region for Howard Hughes. Born and raised in Honolulu, Johnstone says that while the city is full of world-class amenities, its urban realm can sometimes be lacking. “It’s inherently a little disjointed and difficult to get around,” Johnstone says. [Photo: courtesy Ward Village] That’s why the Ward Village developmentestimated to cost several billion dollars over a planned implementation period that runs through the 2030sset aside the space for the park, and spent a considerable amount of time coordinating with state and local officials to get the pedestrian bridge built. Costing a total of $17.8 million, the bridge is technically a project of the state’s Department of Transportation. It was mostly funded by a federal grant, and Howard Hughes helped pay for the 20% portion of the budget required from local sources, donating land, funding the bridge design and providing environmental documentation. “There’s a lot of folks wearing different hats that are trying to see it through, and making sure also it’s done well aesthetically and experience-wise,” Johnstone says. “It’s complementary to what we’re doing in Ward Village, but also something Honolulu can be proud of.” [Photo: courtesy Ward Village] Ocean-to-inland Making the bridge possible is the existence of Victoria Ward Park, which was designed by Vita Planning and Landscape Architecture. The first phase of the park covers 1.4 acres from the edge of Ala Moana Boulevard inland, and is now open. The second phase, covering roughly 2 acres higher inland and more nestled in the Ward Village development, will finish construction later this year. This ocean-to-inland connection became a guiding concept for the Honolulu park’s design, according to Don Vita, founder of Vita Planning and Landscape Architecture. “Going back and forth from the ocean up to the mountains is a very important cultural orientation in Hawaii and that’s exactly what we did with the configuration and the location of the park,” he says.
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E-Commerce
In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Justin Bibb was living in a tight, one-bedroom apartment in Cleveland, Ohio. He couldnt open his windows because his home was an old office building converted to residential unitsnot exactly conducive to physical and mental well-being in the middle of a global crisis. So he sought refuge elsewhere: a large green space, down near the lakefront, where he could stroll. Unfortunately, Bibb said, thats not the case for many of our residents in the city of Cleveland. A native of Cleveland, Bibb was elected the 58th mayor of the city in 2021. Immediately after taking office, he took inspiration from the 15-minute city concept of urban design, an idea that envisions people reaching their daily necessitieswork, grocery stores, pharmacieswithin 15 minutes by walking, biking, or taking public transit. That reduces dependence on cars, and also slashes carbon emissions and air pollution. In Cleveland, Bibbs goal is to put all residents within a 10-minute walk of a green space by the year 2045, by converting abandoned lots to parks and other efforts. Cleveland is far from alone in its quest to adapt to a warming climate. As American cities have grown in size and population and gotten hotter, theynot the federal governmenthave become crucibles for climate action: Cities are electrifying their public transportation, forcing builders to make structures more energy efficient, and encouraging rooftop solar. Together with ambitious state governments, hundreds of cities large and small are pursuing climate action plansdocuments that lay out how they will reduce emissions and adapt to extreme weatherwith or without support from the feds. Clevelands plan, for instance, calls for all its commercial and residential buildings to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. For local leaders, climate action has grown all the more urgent since the Trump administration has been boosting fossil fuels and threatening to sue states to roll back environmental regulations. Last month, Republicans in the House passed a budget bill that would end nearly all the clean energy tax credits from the Biden administrations signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. Because Donald Trump is in the White House again, its going to be up to mayors and governors to really enact and sustain the momentum around addressing climate change at the local level, said Bibb, who formerly chaired Climate Mayors, a bipartisan group of nearly 350 mayors. City leaders can move much faster than federal agencies, and are more in-tune with what their people actually want, experts said. Theyre on the ground and theyre hearing from their residents every day, so they have a really good sense of what the priorities are, said Kate Johnson, regional director for North America at C40 Cities, a global network of nearly 100 mayors fighting climate change. You see climate action really grounded in the types of things that are going to help people. Shifting from a reliance on fossil fuels to clean energy isnt just about reducing a citys carbon emissions, but about creating jobs and saving moneya tangible argument that mayors can make to their people. Bibb said a pilot program in Cleveland that helped low- to moderate-income households get access to free solar panels ended up reducing their utility bills by 60%. The biggest concern for Americans right now isnt climate change, Bibb added. Its the cost of living, and so we have to marry these two things together, he said. I think mayors are in a very unique position to do that. To further reduce costs and emissions, cities like Seattle and Washington, D.C. are scrambling to better insulate structures, especially affordable housing, by installing double-paned windows and better insulation. In Boston last year, the city government started an Equitable Emissions Investment Fund, which awards money for projects that make buildings more efficient or add solar panels to their roofs. We are in a climate where energy efficiency remains the number one thing that we can do, said Oliver Sellers-Garcia, commissioner of the environment and Green New Deal director in the Boston government. And there are so many other comfort and health benefits from being in an efficient, all-electric environment. To that end, cities are deploying loads of heat pumps, hyper-efficient appliances that warm and cool a space. New York City, for instance, is spending $70 million to install 30,000 of the appliances in its public housing. The ultimate goal is to have as many heat pumps as possible running in energy-efficient homesalong with replacing gas stoves with induction rangesand drawing electricity from renewables. Metropolises like Los Angeles and Pittsburgh are creating new green spaces, which reduce urban temperatures and soak up rainwater to prevent flooding. A park is a prime example of multisolving: one intervention that fixes a bunch of problems at once. Another is deploying electric vehicle chargers in underserved neighborhoods, as Cleveland is doing, and making their use free for residents. This encourages the adoption of those vehicles, which reduces carbon emissions and air pollution. That, in turn, improves public health in those neighborhoods, which tend to have a higher burden of pollution than richer areas. Elizabeth Sawin, director of the Multisolving Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, said that these efforts will be more important than ever as the Trump administration cuts funding for health programs. If health care for poor children is going to be depletedwith, say, Medicaid under threatcities cant totally fix that, Sawin said. But if they can get cleaner air in cities, they can at least have fewer kids who are struggling from asthma attacks and other respiratory illnesses. All this workbuilding parks, installing solar panels, weatherizing buildingscreates jobs, both within a city and in surrounding rural areas. Construction workers commute in, while urban farms tap rural growers for their expertise. And as a city gets more of its power from renewables, it can benefit counties far away: The largest solar facility east of the Mississippi River just came online in downstate Illinois, providing so much electricity to Chicago that the citys 400 municipal buildings now run entirely on renewable power. The economic benefits and the jobs arent just necessarily accruing to the citieswhich might be seen as big blue cities, Johnson said. Theyre buying their electric school buses from factories in West Virginia, and theyre building solar and wind projects in rural areas. So cities arent just preparing themselves for a warmer future, but helping accelerate a transition to renewables and spreading economic benefits across the American landscape. We as elected officials have to do a better job of articulating how this important part of public policy is connected to the everyday lived experience, Bibb said. Unfortunately, my party has done a bad job of that. But I think as mayors, we are well positioned to make that case at the local level. Matt Simon, Grist This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
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E-Commerce
For many, the most challenging part of job hunting in 2025 isn’t the competition; it’s the silence. People are applying to more jobs than ever but hearing back less. When a response doesn’t come, it’s easy to feel defeated. You may even begin to suspect that the job was never real in the first placeand in some cases thats true. In new LinkedIn research, nearly half of job seekers said that not hearing back when they apply to a job is a top pain point in their search, and most said the application process feels unclear. More than half of applicants reported hearing back from less than 5% of jobs they applied to, and 69% said the process lacks transparency. It’s not surprising, then, that the majority of job seekers are feeling stuck. When responses are rare, candidates increasingly question whether the jobs theyre applying to are even real. That’s where the term ghost jobs comes in. This expression has been growing in prominence in recent years, and we are seeing an increase in mentions of ghosting across LinkedIn as well. Ghost jobs are job listings that some companies post with no intention of hiring. More than a third of job seekers say ghost jobs are a major pain point. While ghost jobs are essentially fake job listings, weve seen job seekers assume the number of ghost jobs is growing because theyre not hearing back from the companies they are applying to. In reality, its not that straightforward, and part of what’s driving this perception is silence. When job seekers apply and never hear back, it’s easy to assume theyve submitted to a ghost job. In todays competitive market, its harder than ever for job seekers to tell what’s real, what’s active, and where time is best spent. But there are ways to decipher whether a job is real and improve your chances of landing the right role. Apply with more confidence First, make sure youre doing your due diligence when it comes to vetting a job listing. Beware of any job posting that appears too good to be true, text messages offering job interviews, or listings that require payment up front. These are clues that the job may not be what it seems. At LinkedIn, weve recently added new hiring insights offering new details on job listings, such as a companys typical response time and whether a job post is verified, so you can apply knowing information about the company or job poster has been confirmed. Build a trusted network One effective way to avoid silence in the job search is by leveraging referrals and recommendations from your network. When someone in your network refers you for a position, it can elevate your application. In a LinkedIn consumer survey from March, 93% of hiring managers said referrals are important because they come with a trusted recommendation. If you have a first- or second-degree connection at a company youre interested in, dont be afraid to reach out and ask if they can refer you for an open position. Share what youre looking for You can also try posting proactively about what sort of opportunities youre open to. Close to a third of professionals shared that posting to their network about what theyre looking for in a new role was helpful in making new connections or receiving introductions. Ghost jobs make the process harder, but there are ways to protect your time and focus on what’s real. Keep going. The right role is out there. And we are rooting for you.
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E-Commerce
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