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Sunbridge appears to be a quintessential example of 21st century sprawl. A 27,000-acre residential mega-development taking shape outside of Orlando, Florida, its set to include more than 30,000 new homes in total when completea few neighborhoods, miles of trails, and a K8 school have already been completed. Its riding a growth boom in Central Florida; this fast-growing section of the Sun Belt has added more than 1,000 people every week in recent years. But within the different subdivisions being constructed at Sunbridge over the next 30 years, a landscape will emerge with each new home and green space thats much more wild, native, and sustainable than the stereotypical manicured, monoculture green lawns ringed with white picket fences. My spiel for Sunbridge is that you leave your house and in 10 minutes, youre immersed in nature, says Clint Beaty, senior vice president of Operations at Tavistock Development Company, which is developing Sunbridge. Im not talking about a single tree next to a retention pond. I mean a deer is going to walk up to you, and you may see bald eagles, all 15 minutes from the Orlando International Airport. Sunbridge was just named the nations first Homegrown National Park Community, a designation highlighting the projects focus on native plants, nature conservation, and sustainability focused on restoring a measure of biodiversity. Containing an array of different single-family homes, constructed by different developers, mostly ranging in price between $300,000 and $600,000, the larger development will feature a slate of standard suburban homes. According to Tavistock, a majority of the plants will be native, and interspersed with all those homes will be 13,000 acres that will be preserved as an interconnected network of natural habitats, including lakes, wetlands, and oak hammocks, a type of forest habitat native to Florida and the Southeast. [Photo: Scott Cook Photography/Tavistock Development Company] Conservation goes private Typical Florida developers often put the most expensive homes on the water and charge a premium; Sunbridge will leave those waterfronts open and wild for all to enjoy. In the long term, Beaty says, this philosophy will drive value; the challenge is, in the short term, getting homebuyers to understand that. The Homegrown National Park concepta marketing term, not an actual registered and protected public placewas cofounded by scientist and author Doug Tallamy, and aims to regenerate and restore 20 million acres of native habitat across the U.S., mostly on private land, in an effort to stem the biodiversity crisis. The pollution and the loss of habitat have put roughly 40% of animals, plants, and ecosystems in the U.S. at risk. The nation currently has 44 million acres of traditional green turflawn, which Tallamy calls dead space in terms of its ability to support diverse species and local ecosystems. Why should we develop property in a way that expels nature? And while Tallamy says there are parks and preserves for preservation of wildlife, if 78% of the U.S. is privately owned85% of land east of the Mississippi is in private handssomething has to make landowners take biodiversity more seriously. He hopes Sunbridge becomes the first of many such developments, and can help make the case to landowners that this strategy is both cost-effective and consumer friendly. If we dont do conservation on private property, were going to fail, he says. You cant say were not going to do conservation where we develop, because thats everywhere. [Photo: Tavistock Development Company] Landscaping the future While the Homegrown National Park focuses on flora and fauna, the team behind Sunbridge came to the idea while looking at water. Like other fast-growing parts of the country, such as Phoenix, Central Florida faces water shortages and hard limits on growth if business-as-usual development continues. The Central Florida Water Initiative predicts the region will face a 96 million gallon-per-day water shortfall starting in 2045. The landscaping philosophy of Homegrown National Parknative plants that require much less water, less maintenance, and less fertilizercan reduce irrigation and fertilizer runoff. Sunbridge developers estimate that when the entire project is complete and occupied in the coming decades, the planned Florida-native and drought-tolerant landscaping palette will save between 39,000 to 146,300 gallons of water daily, and help cut outdoor water use by 75%. In addition, it will contain whats called keystone plants, native species, such as live oaks, that support local insects and animals. Tallamy says that traditional American landscaping, which uses a variety of non-native plants for decorative purposes, doesnt feed local species and can disrupt the existing food web. Developers hope this plan not only allows the development to grow without bumping up against resource limits, but also proves to be a point of differentiation that attracts future buyers and even adds a premium to home prices. Theyve been aggressively marketing the developments trails, greenspace, lakes, and landscape, dubbing it a naturehood. Beaty, who grew up in Florida, remembers playing in backyards in July with brown grass as a kid, since it was so challenging to water. Ever since Disney came to Florida, he says, thats the (artificial) expectation people have of the Florida front yard. This is the horticultural challenge of our time, says Tallamy. How do we make ecologically accesible landscapes that are also pretty? [Photo: Scott Cook Photography/Tavistock Development Company] Finding the solution in sprawl It may seem counterintuitive to count suburban developments as part of the solution to the biodiversity crisis, since theyre a significant cause of the problem in the U.S. Sprawl development in the 21st century alone has eaten up more than two million acres annually in the U.S., according to the Center for Biological Diversity, leading to significant habitat and species loss: roads, fences and structures break up habitats; fertilizers and pollution harm plants; and light and noise pollution impact animal health. While Sunbridge remains the first large development to sign on, Homegrown National Park has also been busy with other collaborations, partnering with regional and state Native Plant Societies, including the Native Plant Society of Texas, to engage and support developers and HOAs that are interested in integrating the Homegrown National Park model. One of the challenges going forward will be maintaining the initial philosophy of native plantings and more sustainability minded landscaping. Since there arent necessarily strong ways to mandate lawn care or plant choicethere wont be an overarching homeowners association enforcing standardsBeaty hopes the good faith approach theyre taking, which favors carrots instead of sticks, will prove itself over time. This will include a number of resources and support, including publishing a curated list of native plants, and a variety of community programs to help with lawn care and to promote conservation. Residents will also be given digital water dashboards to help monitor their consumption, and messaging about how a healthier, more native lawn means fewer chemicals that aren’t good for your kids and a lower utility bill every month. Advocates say these kinds of development agreements, and efforts at urban rewilding in cities, can, along with the vital preservation of remaining natural habitat, help slow and ideally reverse the biodiversity loss being felt around the globe. Tallamy says that scientists already understand what needs to be done to fix the biodiversity crisis. Projects like Sunbridge, which seek to sell residents on the benefits of a more biodiverse landscape, can help get more momentum behind deploying those solutions. We know how to increase biodiversity, he says. What were fighting now are sociological problems.
Category:
E-Commerce
With over 800 student organizations on campus, the University of Pennsylvania already seems to have a club for every interest, from investment banking to beekeepingeven cheese. Now, add AI to the mix. In September, dozens of Penn students gathered in the engineering school auditorium for the debut of the Claude Builder Club, sponsored by AI company Anthropic. Over the course of this semester, the Builder Club has plans to host a hackathon, demo night, and other opportunities to create projects using artificial intelligence. I need the Claude premium for a year, says Crystal Yang, a freshman who attended the first meeting. Claude, she had heard, is better for coding and sounding more human in writing. Like Yang, many attendees were interested chiefly in the free Claude Pro and API credits offered. But according to their responses at the first meeting, a number of attendees also wanted to spend the semester working on problems with climate, healthcare, and manufacturing. Hearing other Penn students stand up and share what problems they were working on solving with the help of AI was genuinely inspiring, says Alain Welliver, one of the Builder Club ambassadors leading Penns chapter. As an ambassador, Welliver is responsible for promoting the club and developing programming. Hell receive a $1,750 stipend for his work. Welliver, an engineering student, saw the ambassadorship opportunity this summer on LinkedIn and was quickly interestedhe had considered creating a similar club before. To land the role, he completed a written application form about projects hes built and his perspective on AI, and did an interview. The Builder Clubs are part of Anthropics broader Claude for Education initiative, which also includes a Learning mode in Claude and free campuswide access for partnering universities. Drew Bent, the education lead on Anthropics Beneficial Developments team, suggests that economics students who take part in the Builder Clubs could, for example, use their Claude app to create an interactive simulator for a macroeconomics concept in minutes. The first iteration of Builder Clubs debuted this fall semester; there are now over 60 participating universities. Theyve launched at seven of the eight Ivy League schools, SEC schools like the University of Georgia and Vanderbilt University, and international universities like the London School of Economics. According to Greg Feingold, who leads the Builder Club program for Anthropic, over 15,000 students have signed up. More than 25 of the chapters exceed 100 members. By the end of the semester, Feingold hopes to empower students to build projects theyre interested in, especially those who have found AI tools too costly or otherwise inaccessible before. I really want us to find those students who are not technical students and have them participate, Feingold says. I just know that were going to get some really amazing stories of people who have never written a line of code but were able to make an app for the first time. A certain type of agency Victor Lee, a professor at Stanford Universitys Graduate School of Education, says tech companies have launched similar programs in the past, pointing to Apples Swift Coding Clubs as an example. A lot of groups are trying to jockey for position and recognition, especially amongst a user base that is likely to be core to them, he says. Across college campuses, AI companies are everywhere. During the last finals season, OpenAI offered free ChatGPT Plus. At Penn, students recently waited in line for over an hour at a Google Gemini pop-up eventwhich included free Gemini-branded Owala water bottles. This has created concerns for educators, who worry many students are using AI to cheat. In addition to being a Builder Club ambassador, students can apply to be a Campus ambassador and promote Anthropic products directly to peers. Anuja Uppuluri, one of the first ambassadors, shared on X Anthropics $1/month Pro subscription deal for Carnegie Mellon University students this spring. Her post received tens of thousands of views, and in the comments section, multiple students asked for the offer to be available at their schools too. Uppuluri feels thankful that she took her introductory computer science courses before LLMs got popular: The temptation to use an AI tool would have been all too alluring. Theres some type of agency about Claude Code that makes it different, Uppuluri notes. It doesnt make it a tool. I think it makes it more like a pair programmer. Welliver finds Anthropic to be one of the few AI companies with an approach that fully aligns with his values. Part of the Builder Club programming that Anthropic has developed is education about AI safety and the societal impacts of AI. If you ask my friends, theyd probably be like, Alains the last person to become a brand ambassador, Welliver says. Anthropic, though, is really intentionally trying to do an ethical approach to advancing AI. I think those values transfer over to the club.
Category:
E-Commerce
Its not often that headlines about customer brawls end up morphing into good news for a brand. But thats arguably whats happened to Starbucks thanks to the bungled rollout of its limited-run Bearista cups becoming the first new craze of this holiday seasoneven including good-natured copycat tributes from the likes of Aldi and Walmart. At first, the Bearista debut on November 6 seemed like a black eye. The 20-ounce glass tumbler, shaped like a cute bear sporting a Starbucks beanie, sparked immediate viral demand, with customers at some locations lining up at 3 a.m. to score one. This apparently caught the company off guard, and supplies of the $30 object ran out almost instantly. Frustrated customers slammed the brand online (some claiming stores were woefully understocked), and in a few cases physically battled each other for what was available. ‘Bearista’ cups brew up brawls at Starbucks, Fox News reported. With fistfight accounts and clips circulating online, the fiasco took on a Waffle House vibenot exactly the community-centric third place experience the coffee giant tries to cultivate. Starbucks apologized for the disappointment. But the story didnt go away. It evolved. Of course the bear tumblers materialized on eBay, on sale for hundreds of dollars. But less predictably, a new round of social media videosand mainstream press coverage of themexplained how to DIY your own bear-shaped drinking vessel dupe by draining honey packaging and perhaps drawing on the Starbucks logo for fun. Aldi began winkingly promoting a $5 gingerbread-figure cup for those who missed out on that $30 bear; Walmart chimed in with its own version, a bear-shaped bottle of its Great Value brand honey filled with coffee. All of this has been lighthearted, and ultimately a tribute. Thus the Bearista mini-craze was pulled back from becoming a borderline squalid tale of corporate fumbling and manic consumerism. Instead, its as if the market has decided that thanks to this absurd incident, bear cups are, somehow, out of nowhere, now a Holiday Thing. And that works out rather neatly for Starbucks, which this week, in the direct aftermath of the Bearista freakout, began rolling out this years version of its traditional holiday-object lineup. On November 13 it started offering the new iteration of its annual reusable Red Cup promotiona free, limited-edition cup, in four design choices, for certain orders from its holiday menu. And it has teased new holiday merch additions to its lineup, including a collaboration with fashion brand Roller Rabbit slated for early December. Meanwhile, though Starbucks has declined to comment on whether the Bearista will return (a McRib-style mystery?), demand clearly transcends any ill will about the botched debut. We want the cup , reads the top response to one Starbucks Instagram post hyping the new Red Cup designs. Dont ignore our bear cup requests! echoes another response. We want more! In other words, what looked like a brand blunder is now arguably the happiest story of the early Brian Niccol eracertainly better than news of store closings or lagging earnings or union disputes. The Bearista tale, however chaotic, has ended up making Starbucks feel relevant, in a good way. If there is such a thing as the right kind of brand brawl, this was it.
Category:
E-Commerce
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