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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWith wildfires in the Western U.S. and heat waves across the South, it\u2019s a stretch for Americans to start thinking about winter. But now is the time to think ahead. Many of the activities that have been keeping people in cities safe and sane since March \u2014 walks, bike rides, stoop gatherings, and park picnics \u2014 will literally take on a different hue as temperatures drop, the wind picks up and the sun sets at 5 p.m. Urban winter in the many parts of the U.S. can take cues from counties with snowy slopes \u2014 but also from other cultures used to dealing with cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scientists remain divided on why winter is flu season in the Northern Hemisphere, but two of the most popular hypotheses are increased time spent in sealed indoor environments and a lack of sunlight, which compromises the immune system. Covid may work the same way, meaning that in 2020 we have two viral reasons to stay outdoors rather than one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe story I always tell about our winter city strategy, was that we, not just in Edmonton but across North America, felt we could respond to winter by making it go away,\u201d says Ben Henderson, councillor for Ward 8 on the Edmonton City Council and one of the authors of the city\u2019s seven-year-old WinterCity<\/a> initiative. \u201cYou got up in the morning and it was probably dark, you connected to your vehicle without going outside, you went to the pedway and ate lunch without going outdoors. We were never getting direct sunlight or fresh air and then we wondered why we became depressed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Summer 2020 made best-sellers out of such backyard pleasures as potting soil, inflatable pools, and sidewalk chalk, Winter 2020 should see a run on long underwear, fire pits, and faux fur cushions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Edmonton is among Canada\u2019s coldest cities \u2014 though it is a dry cold \u2014 with January temperatures reaching as low as 3 degrees Fahrenheit. So the idea was: If you can enjoy January outdoors there, you can enjoy it anywhere. By making it easier to get to work, play outside and find things to do outside the home, the WinterCity Strategy targeted both physical and mental health. By 2017, 44% of respondents to a WinterCity survey said their perception of winter in Edmonton had become more positive. U.S. cities have months, rather than years, to do the same for Covid winter, but the strategies shouldn\u2019t be that different. It has become clear that the safest place to be with other people is outdoors, and we can learn from winter cities how to keep the good times (literally) rolling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If Summer 2020 made best-sellers out of such backyard pleasures as potting soil, inflatable pools and sidewalk chalk, Winter 2020 should see a run on long underwear, fire pits and faux fur cushions. Edmonton\u2019s WinterCity website includes actionable toolkits at multiple scales, starting with winter fashion<\/a>. Dress in layers, invest in silk and wool long underwear, get over your prejudice against parkas. Many people do this as a matter of course when gearing up for a day of skiing or a turn around the ice rink. But in cities, people dress for the destination, not the journey. \u201cPeople dress saying, I\u2019m going from my home to this business. What\u2019s the least amount of clothing I can wear for the tolerance of walking x feet?\u201d says Simon O\u2019Byrne, senior vice president of community development for global design consultancy Stantec. \u201cWe have to switch that, and dress to loiter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n O\u2019Byrne, who is also co-chair of the WinterCity Advisory Council, adds, \u201cStickiness encourages people outside. Moscow does year-round farmers markets. The artists\u2019 community has been pulverized by Covid. As much as we can, we should embrace things to help the local artists, community.\u201d He suggests commissioning visual artists to illuminate dark spaces, via murals or light installations, and hiring musicians for distanced outdoor concerts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cities should also invest in places to loiter. All of those outdoor restaurants that are supporting local businesses and bringing liveliness back to the streets? In New York City, at least, they are scheduled to shut down<\/a> at the end of October, while the mayor and governor bicker over indoor dining<\/a>. But cities need to catch up to ski areas, which long ago figured out how to make apr\u00e8s ski activities like outdoor bars and music venues as much of an attraction as the slopes. Wind breaks (with openings above and below for ventilation), patio heaters and sun orientation can all take outdoor dining further into 2020. WinterCity\u2019s Four Season Patio Design Tips<\/a> also include higher insulation value materials, like wood or straw bales rather than metal seating, as well as simple solutions like blankets, which offer customers the winter equivalent of being able to reposition your chair in the sun \u2014 though that works year-round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are lucky enough to have an outdoor space of your own, you can winter-proof that too. Maura Rockcastle, principal of Minneapolis landscape and urban design practice TEN x TEN<\/a>, is already adapting one client\u2019s sunken stone gathering space for the coming season, since that is where they have been doing most of their socializing this summer, by adding wood furniture and evening lighting around the existing gas fire. The space is already screened by birch trees for privacy, but they have the additional advantage of cutting wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of opportunity for small mobile amenities,\u201d Rockcastle adds, suggesting hot food trucks and mobile saunas. In Minnesota, for example, after a day of ice fishing in a small, often poorly ventilated shanty, people sometimes gather by the lake for chilly but fresh-air barbecues. What if you could transfer that idea of end-of-day outdoor communal meals to gathering around a sauna, or a hot chocolate bar? Rockcastle asks. Since 2003, the Loppet Foundation<\/a> has sponsored an annual winter festival in Minneapolis that includes Luminary Loppet<\/a>, a candlelit night on Lake of the Isles where participants can walk, snowshoe, or ski the illuminated route. It is so popular that visitors already needed timed \u201cwaves\u201d for the start, pre-social distancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People walk on the frozen Lake Of The Isles during Minneapolis\u2019s Loppet Winter Festival.Photographer: GeorgePeters\/iStockphoto<\/p>\n\n\n\n Minneapolis is not the only U.S. city that was already invested in winter community-building. When I wrote about how U.S. cities should learn from our northern neighbor<\/a> for Curbed in 2019, urban nonprofit 8 80 Cities had just launched its Wintermission<\/a> program, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Global Ideas Fund at CAF America, with a goal to reduce winter social isolation. After that story was published, 8 80 Cities collected community feedback in its three selected cities, Leadville, Colorado; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; and Buffalo, New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSnow removal and management was a common concern across the cities,\u201d says David Simor, senior project manager at 8 80 Cities. \u201cIt is really hard to engage in social and physical activity outdoors if you can\u2019t get outdoors.\u201d But there was also local context: Eau Claire has a large Hmong community, with a lot of older adults. They reported that they weren\u2019t seeing their culture represented in so-called traditional winter activities, and that equity barriers such as uncleared sidewalks and limited public transportation in the evening prevented their participation. In the warmer months, Hmong elders often garden for exercise and companionship. \u201cOne of the ideas to come out of this process was working with Hmong community associations and other local stakeholders to create winter greenhouses,\u201d Simor says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCovid has brought to the surface the exact same problems around social isolation Wintermission was created to address,\u201d says Simor. \u201cThe same communities hit hard because they had not planned for winter were hit hard by Covid.\u201d This includes communities that, by virtue of race, income and age, didn\u2019t have the same access to outdoor spaces, community centers and the economic resources necessary for many outdoor sports.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Simor sees promise in a number of successful Wintermission pilot projects, all of which would allow the kinds of outdoor activity that flourished this summer to continue. Eau Claire has a three- to four-mile winter recreational loop<\/a> that connects its downtown to the sizable University of Wisconsin campus; it was prioritized for snow plowing so that it remained clear throughout the winter. Clearing pedestrian and bike routes will be particularly important this winter, as the pandemic has prompted a \u201cmobility shift\u201d in many cities away from public transit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople are filling the gap with cycling, walking, scootering,\u201d O\u2019Byrne says. \u201cWe have to continue this momentum into winter\u201d by building protected bike networks, keeping sidewalks clear, and creating well-lit and sheltered routes on narrower streets or in alleys with built-in wind protection. Brooklyn-based Good Company Bike Club<\/a>, which set up its first group ride via Instagram Stories in May, \u201cwas born out of the boredom of quarantine,\u201d says founder Andrew Bennett. \u201cCycling is the perfect balance of wanting to exercise, wanting to socialize and wanting to isolate.\u201d Bennett and his e-board (Shari Brown, Marv Marcel and Milly Louis) plan to keep the events going into the cold months, and want to raise money for the club (free to date) by selling branded hoodies, masks and sweats to keep riders warm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mobile saunas like this on in Estonia could become a gathering spot for outdoor meals. Photographer: Michal Fludra\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n Snow clearance has become an ongoing political issue for winter cities, with disabled people, the elderly, and parents and caregivers arguing that sidewalks and crossings deserve the same priority as cars, lest people be essentially trapped in their homes<\/a>. Many physically disabled people have already had their mobility limited during quarantine due to pre-existing health risks, the inability to avoid using elevators and the difficulty of maintaining social distancing. Temporary urban design changes also need to be inclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabrielle Peters, a multiply disabled wheelchair user and writer, is a former member of the City of Vancouver\u2019s Active Transportation and Policy Council. She says, \u201cI\u2019m a big advocate for widening sidewalks. Sidewalks shouldn\u2019t just be so that you can get from place to place. They are a place to socialize, to move at different speeds, to let a toddler look at the grass.\u201d Among the proposals in New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer\u2019s recent report on saving the city\u2019s \u201cMain Streets\u201d<\/a> was a call for expanding sidewalks in commercial corridors, and getting garbage off the sidewalks. The expanded pedestrian zones would also accommodate street vendors (here\u2019s where the baked potatoes reappear), public bathrooms and seating that doesn\u2019t require a purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe also need large overhangs and roofed areas with heaters in public space (not just restaurant patios) where people can gather. Respiratory conditions such as asthma are quite common and cold air can be a trigger,\u201d Peters says. \u201cThere is also the concern these changes will reduce accessibility for disabled people depending on how they are designed and operated. There are expanded brunch options for people with funds to eat in privatized and often inaccessible public space that encroaches onto and lessens sidewalk accessibility. It seems every urbanist\u2019s favorite option is taking away parking space. If we remove the accessible parking spaces, we remove the people who use them from public space. Some people need cars to get around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wintermission\u2019s Simor says that any blueprint for Covid winter should be expansive enough to include families. \u201cWhen we are doing engagement, children have the most positive feelings about winter. What are we doing wrong that we lose that?\u201d he says. S\u2019mores kits proved to be a popular way to get families to linger in parks in the winter, at a relatively low cost, along with working with municipal fire departments to make them more comfortable with the idea of public fire pits. \u201cA lot of public parks do have barbecue areas. If you take that same thinking, and allow fire pits, rather than only being used three or four months of the year you can use them 12 months of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outdoor winter activities are only as safe as any outdoor activity and, as summer exposed the impact of the unequal distribution of parks in Black and Latinx communities<\/a> and the disparate effect of open streets in low-income communities<\/a>, efforts to create social spaces outside have to acknowledge local conditions that may include violence, crime and drug use, as well as the over-policing of Black and Brown communities. Marc Miller, a landscape architect and professor at Penn State, recalls taking the bus in winter in the Twin Cities, and how the bus shelters there weren\u2019t big enough to protect people with shopping carts who didn\u2019t have cars at home to go grocery shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is part of the process: How do you make spaces that are accommodating that actually work for your user group, provide them with what they need to be comfortable, and then how is it not seen as a threat to other people? If there are six people over there in parkas, is that a threat?\u201d Miller points out that even design renderings of winter activities often lack Black scalies<\/a> (figures who populate architectural designs). \u201cThat creates a gap of imagination of how Black people and people of color use spaces in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my favorite ideas for celebrating winter came from Twitter handwringing about new Covid clusters popping up on college campuses. \u201cWhat if instead of shaming college students for going to parties we tried to provide them with a a realistic framework for getting their social needs met as safely as possible in the spirit of harm reduction,\u201d Angie Schmitt, author of the recently published Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America<\/a>, asked rhetorically<\/a>. This is the Winter 2020 question in a nutshell: What if instead of scolding people for their social needs, we got understanding, and then we got creative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric Keller responded, \u201cNobody at Penn State is taking me up on my idea to have (masked) nightly dance parties on the student union lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you can have a silent disco, why not a dance party with parkas, masks and fire pits? Bring on the baked potato.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Don\u2019t write off the darkest season just yet. Even with colder weather and shorter days, it\u2019s still possible to plan for pandemic-safe outdoor fun. Alexandra Lange 11 de septiembre de 2020 14:06 GMT-5 Andrea Chronopoulos In Victorian England, the baked potato had dual purposes. Sold from street-side \u201ccans\u201d \u2014 metal boxes on four legs, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internacional"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pulsecoder.com.mx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/covid-003.jpg?resize=696%2C767\")
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