Last week, Super Man and Ghandi rolled into my neighbourhood. I know, it sounds like the opening line of a joke, but it isn’t. Henry Cavill and Ben Kingsley were in town for a film set in winter and the active core of my city, Winnipeg, is one of the best choices for lovable urbanism and dependable winter – two of my favourite subjects. While most of the northern hemisphere is now experiencing full-on springtime with trees bursting to life and the chill effectively chased, winter cities are still capitalizing on the last of our winter wonderlands. Continue Reading
Goodbye Winter: Until next time, a few reminders on lovable winter cities
Walkable Winter Cities
Coming in from my slow run on this morning’s packed snow, I am grateful again for my old, walkable neighbourhood that tempts me out of doors, even in the cold weather. And that’s saying a lot, since I live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, one of the three coldest cities on earth of a population of 600,000 or higher.
Walkability mitigates the most extreme climates by providing interesting places to warm up, linger, and connect. And plenty of options about how and where to turn around and circle back.
Connected? Walkable urbanism, active kids, and Olympic gold
Last Friday, our nine-year-old came home from school talking nonstop Olympics. He went on for awhile about 2010 medal counts, with Canada taking home 14 golds in Vancouver, the record for any country at Winter Olympics. The deep polar vortex we’ve been trudging through this winter has to have some silver lining, so perhaps being better at Winter Olympics is part of the payoff for our wintry country. #WeAreWinter. However, I couldn’t help but thinking about Suburban Nation
’s account of Canadian urbanism, and wondering if there’s any cause and effect between walkable urbanism, active kids, and Olympic gold.