Plunging temperatures, gray skies and long night don’t mean we need to hurry indoors until springtime. Many cities around the world now offer inspiring examples of how creative Placemaking allows people to enjoy public spaces and lively city streets throughout the winter. From Copenhagen to Quebec City to New York, people are flocking to outdoor markets and festivals, engaging in public activities and even gathering at sidewalk cafes during the coldest months of the year.

In an increasingly globalized economy, where businesses as well as workers have more say in where they locate, winter cities can no longer afford to appear lifeless for a quarter of the year. Many people now choose places to live on the basis of vital local culture, and civic leaders increasingly understand that making public places that are inviting all year, not just when it is warm and sunny, is essential for a dynamic, prosperous community. Successful visions for winter cities include showcasing numerous opportunities for public activity throughout the winter months (not just during the brief holiday season), focusing on local identity and character and, of course, providing an inviting, vibrant physical environment.

BREEZE THROUGH …
    Learning from Vienna, Berlin, and Paris
    Creating a Vision for Winter
    Winter Markets and Celebrations Are Hot
    Wonderful Winter-full Copenhagen
    6 Lessons for Making Great Winter Cities
    Our Local Winter Landscape

CREDITS ...
Jay Walljasper, author of The Great Neighborhood Book, is a writer, speaker and consultant on how citizens can improve their communities. He lives in Minneapolis and is a Senior Fellow at Project for Public Spaces. See www.JayWalljasper.com.

Project for Public Spaces is a New York-based group that works around the world helping people revitalize streets, parks, downtowns, public markets and civic spirit in their towns. This article first appeared on the PPS website.

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LEARNING FROM VIENNA, BERLIN, AND PARIS
    If people are given the chance to do something they enjoy doing, they will bundle up and go outside to do it, even when temperatures are below freezing.

“It’s like any other time of the year,” said Cynthia Nikitin, vice president of the Project for Public Spaces, a not-for-profit organization in New York. “If there are people out, other people will come out too to see what’s going on. But there has to be a reason to be outside – a market, ice skating, music, decorative lighting or just a good place to hang out when it’s cold. No one will stay outdoors to stare at an empty plaza.”

A frequent mistake made in winter cities is to overemphasize the impact of the weather, using it as a rationale for why they don’t have great public spaces. “When people in a city use the climate as an excuse for mediocrity – and that happens in hot places where we work, too, like Dubai and Tempe, Arizona – ” says Nikitin, “then I know the problem is not weather but the need for a bigger vision in that place.”

This lack of vision – not freezing temperatures, cloudy skies, early sunsets or deep snow – is the biggest problem facing winter cities in North America. As Gil Peñalosa – a Colombian and former parks commissioner in Bogotá, who has happily adapted to life in Ontario, where he works as president of Walk and Bike For Life – explains, “Winter is really a question of mental attitude. Thanks to new lightweight warm clothes you don’t have to pile on thick coats and three layers of mufflers like you once did. It’s much easier to enjoy yourself outside. It’s really up to you how much fun you have in winter.”

 

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CREATING A VISION FOR WINTER
    The first step in creating great winter cities is recapturing the enthusiasm kids show this time of year. What child (of any age) doesn’t welcome a fresh snowfall or a new coating of ice to slide around on? Parks and plazas play a big role in fostering public activity 12 months a year, providing people with places to sled, cross-country ski, ice skate or just mingle. So long as winter weather is associated only with difficult driving conditions and potential frostbite, as happens with most TV weather reports, people in northern cities will continue to hole up in their homes or make plans for moving south.

Quebec City, famed for its winter carnival and street vendors selling hot bread, is a prime example of making winter into an asset. Same for the Canadian capital of Ottawa, where the Rideau Canal becomes the focal point of civic life in the winter as folks strap on their blades for a chance to skate through a wintry landscape rather than just making circles around a rink or pond. People even commute to work that way. Mississauga, the Toronto suburb where Peñalosa was Parks Director, doesn’t have a canal but they fashioned a long-distance skating course by flooding a walking trail.

New York stands out among American cities in celebrating the winter months. Rockefeller Center is famous for its ice rink, which becomes the beloved heart of Midtown Manhattan by attracting a handful of skaters and the crowds of onlookers who love to watch them glide back and forth. That’s an important lesson in winter recreation. The skaters or tobogganers are not the only ones served. There’s a multiplier effect, in which the hardy endeavors of a few draw other people to the scene, thus creating the critical mass for a bustling public place. Add a stand to buy hot chocolate or roasted chestnuts and things get even livelier. This idea of “triangulation” can create a major city center attraction even in during the coldest months of the year. That’s the mission of Rockefeller Center, where music and other public events are programmed all winter long so that it becomes a spot to which New Yorkers and even out-of-towners naturally gravitate.

Less well-known nationally but equally important to locals are the winter goings-on at Bryant Park, right behind the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. This small mid-town park has increased winter activity by leaps and bounds with the addition of a holiday market and skating rink. The park’s café now stays open in the evening, and they even offer outdoor seating which helps keep things lively after sundown. The Bryant Park Restoration Corporation e-mails people in the adjacent area periodically to let them know when the rink is open and encourage them to stop in at lunch or after work. This is important in building a winter constituency for the park, since most people don’t naturally think of going to the park in cold months. And like Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park offers events all through the winter. Too many cities shut off the lights and clear out the public spaces by January 2, when cold weather has just begun.

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WINTER MARKETS AND CELEBRATIONS ARE HOT
    In cities like Vienna and Salzburg in Austria, Munich in Germany, and Strasbourg and Paris in France, there is much thought and planning devoted to make sure the city stays lively once the leaves fall and mercury drops. Popular places like street markets don’t close, they just take on another form. Holiday-themed markets are found in many places for several weeks before the Christmas holiday.

This tradition has now come to North America. Union Square and Columbus Circle in New York now feature European-style markets, and others can be found in place as varied as Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Washington DC, Santa Fe, Eugene, Oregon, and Santa Monica, California.

Holiday markets can boost the spirit of any community in the colder season. “It’s coming on as a new kind of market,” says David O’Neil, PPS senior associate on public markets. “We’ve been pushing the idea of farmers markets extending the season beyond Thanksgiving, which is the traditional end of many seasonal markets.” It can start simple with the local market staying open for Christmas tree growers and inviting local artisans to exhibit their creations for holiday shoppers. Find a vendor to sell cappuccino, hot cider or even wassail, and another offering steaming cups of chili, sizzling sausages or toasty grilled cheese sandwiches. Bring in church and school choirs to sing carols, and maybe build a makeshift stage for bands or theatrical troupes. Sponsor a snowman, ice sculpture or break-dancing-on-ice competition. And that’s just the beginning.

Winter carnivals are another great tradition to spice up the doldrums of late January or February. For more than a hundred years, St. Paul has been throwing a mid-winter bash that resembles a frozen Mardi Gras. There are torchlight parades complete with floats, a citywide treasure hunt, an internationally acclaimed ice sculpture exhibition, dogsled races, and, some years, a life-sized ice palace you can wander through. The whole event revolves around a fanciful battle pitting King Boreas, the reigning monarch of the winds, in alliance with Aurora, the Snow Queen, against the Rex Vulcanus, the God of Fire, and his followers who wear red suits and ride firetrucks around town. It’s ten days of good fun, which ends in Vulcanus’s triumph – a sign that spring is around the corner.

Dartmouth College and Quebec City are also famous for their midwinter fêtes, and could be an inspiration for your own community celebration of snow, ice and all things wintry. An event scheduled for March – a time in many regions where the snow has turned to slush but chilly temperatures and cabin fever endure – might be especially welcomed.

People’s newfound interest in enjoying public spaces twelve months a year is sparking a wave of admirable innovations. Landscape architects are paying more attention to patterns of wind and sunshine, so people can comfortably hang-out outdoors in parks and squares. In some forward-looking cities, bike lanes and pedestrian walks are snow plowed before the streets. Restaurant owners have installed gas heaters, and provide blankets to keep customers coming to their sidewalk tables far longer than ever before. In Denmark, notes Copenhagen architect Jan Gehl, improvements like these have expanded the season of “good” weather from six to ten months.

Darkness, as much as cold and snow, can limit people’s enjoyment of the outdoors during winter. Smart cities are responding by artistically stringing lights throughout the city center and neighborhood business districts, creating an overall ambiance of delight and pleasure that makes us want to linger outside even when it is chilly. And the lights shine on all winter, not just the Christmas season. Scotland may be the leader in creative lighting today. In Edinburgh, attention is focused on key streets with creatively designed overhead lighting as part of a mesh roof for the street.

Paris also creates the illusion of a winter wonderland at traffic circles and intersections by lighting trees, and (imitation) snow with pale blue lights creating a dramatic and calming effect on traffic. “Every store in Paris tries to outdo the others with artistic lighting displays,” reports Ethan Kent, PPS vice president. “And it’s not at all nostalgic, it’s very stylish.”

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WONDERFUL WINTER-FULL COPENHAGEN
    Visit Copenhagen in the depths of winter, and everything you think about winter will be turned upside down. The city is notorious, even in Scandinavia, for miserable weather –icy rain accompanied by reliably gray skies. The sun doesn’t rise until mid-morning, and the sky turns dark again by four. Yet, the streets are alive with the sound of people having fun.

I visited Denmark three years ago right after New Year’s, a time when northern regions in the U.S. are at their gloomiest with holiday festivities done and everyone retreating inside until the first signs of spring. But I found the Danish towns of Aarhus and Velje, as well as Copenhagen, pulsing with energy. Danes seem to actually like winter, and certainly don’t let it deter their enjoyment of public spaces.

I remember one near-freezing Thursday evening in Copenhagen with the wind blowing hard enough to knock down most of the bikes parked on the perimeter of the center city. (Indeed, a third of the city’s residents cycle to work during winter, down only a bit from the 50 percent who bike in the warmer months). However no one I saw seemed fazed by the wintry weather. Teen-age boys with their jackets open were marching down pedestrian lanes munching pizza from nearby take-out windows. Elderly couples were out strolling, arm in arm. Parents pushed baby buggies. Beautifully dressed women floated past, showing off the latest winter fashions as if on a Milan catwalk rather than a Scandinavian street. An impromptu jam session with balalaika and guitar drew applauding onlookers in a square. And, even more incredibly, a few people were seated outside at sidewalk cafes sipping warm drinks.

Danes aren’t any hardier than the rest of us, notes Copenhagen architect Jan Gehl, it’s simply that Danish cities are endowed with many great places where people want to hangout even when it’s damp or freezing. “Climates differ all over the world,” notes Gehl, whose firm specializes in urban revitalization projects, “but people are the same. They will gather in public if you give them a good place to do it.”

In Copenhagen, the “good weather” season has increased from six to ten months over the past few decades. The climate has not changed, but the city has. A longstanding effort to create lively public places has paid off year round. “Make the city as good as possible for the many ‘good’ days, and that will carry over to the few ‘bad’ days,” Gehl advises.

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6 LESSONS FOR MAKING GREAT WINTER CITIES
In the winter, when the environment offers more challenges, we need to think about public spaces and events differently. Great winter cities have learned some key lessons for success:

1
Winter events should last awhile, preferably more than a week. Activities should offer more than a tree lighting followed by carols. Specific events are best tied to an ongoing winter activity like a skating rink.

2
The events and activities should
overlap and be spaced out. A series of ongoing events can be created that cumulatively last three months or even longer, depending on the length of the winter season.

3
Different types of activities and events should be combined so they can build off each other. For example, combining a skating rink, outdoor café, outdoor library reading room, children’s play area and food or holiday market entices people to stay for a few hours or more, even when it’s cold and dark outside.

4
Focus on what makes a particular city special. In Germany, Austria and France, local specialties like wursts, mulled wines, or oysters foster a sense of local identity at outdoor winter events. They highlight what is unique about the place while also providing people with the draw of warm food and drink on a cold day. Locally made goods and gifts can serve the same purpose.

5
Creative lighting is key because it creates an ambiance for the city center as a whole. Lighting can create the feeling that winter activities and events are much bigger than they really are.

6
Management is essential. Without management of a city’s spaces, no winter activities would occur. Competent and ambitious management leads to great results.

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OUR LOCAL WINTER LANDSCAPE
– Complied by Kinzy Janssen, Briana Krantz, and Trevor Kupfer

Our local winter scene is nowhere near that of Paris, Munich, or Quebec City. We don’t have the winter-long decorations or the types of events of those intimidating towns. But it’s not as though locals have just been lazy or uncreative. In fact, several ideas have surfaced for winter events, and a small group even tried one out last year. So why haven’t most of these things happened? What are the challenges of developing our own little winter wonderland?

Winter Warriors
    “Let’s get people to embrace winter,” said Eau Claire sculptor Steve Bateman. “Get out into the cold and do stuff.”

As a champion snow sculptor, Bateman has visited winter cities around the globe (from San Candido, Italy to Grant Park in Chicago) and seen several intriguing events. The winter city of Frankenmuth, known as “Michigan’s Little Bavaria,” really embraces the holiday season, Bateman said. On top of a sculpting competition, the town had live music, food and beverage vendors, and businesses showcased themselves with ice sculptures in front of their buildings.

Of all the cities Bateman has visited and events he has seen, many of their organizers had partnered with other groups to provide additional amenities. Like so many other groups in town, Bateman wants to start a winter carnival in Eau Claire that would include activities like snow sculpting, horse-drawn wagon rides, lighting up the bridges, and a polar plunge.

    Though his creation was hardly the same scale as a carnival, Eric Anderson tried to broaden our local horizons last year with a kubb event in February. More than 30 people came out to the open stretch in the Grand Avenue district of downtown Eau Claire for three hours of the increasingly popular lawn game, and some grilling.

“You can play kubb in the snow as well, so I thought, ‘What the heck, let’s put it together and see if anyone else wants to play in the snow,” he said. Anderson said he hopes to put on the tournament every year, ideally as part of a winter carnival.

Community Challenges
    The holiday season brings us events such as the Bridge to Wonderland Parade (Chippewa Falls), WinterDaze (Menomonie), and Christmastime in the City (Eau Claire). But the following three months? Not so much. So with these communities generally agreeing that a winter event would be valuable, why hasn’t it happened?

“(Downtown Eau Claire has) done quite a bit of research and planning on the possibility of a really cool winter carnival with snow sculptures, heated tents, food, bands, etc.,” said Jessica Cather, communications and promotions coordinator for Downtown Eau Claire Incorporated. “But we currently don’t have the resources to plan this type of event.”

Cather said recruiting volunteers (usually 50-60) is a huge challenge, even in summer, so winter would logically be more difficult. Mary Solberg, executive director of Main Street of Menomonie, voiced similar sentiments.

“Taking on more is always a challenge, whether it’s because of budget concerns, volunteer burnout, or a lack of interest,” she said. “We have a very loyal, hardworking group of volunteers … but when you keep going to the same well, you have to be mindful of the toll added events take on your volunteers.”

Solberg and Cather agreed that weather is an obvious factor, due to its unpredictability. “Can you imagine canceling an entire outdoor event that you spent a year planning?” Cather said.

The Future of Winter
    The story was one in the same when we chatted with city parks and recreation directors about the decorations found in downtowns each December, only to vanish come January. They’d each like to expand their decorations – Eau Claire envisions lights going from Wilson Park, down Barstow, all the way to Phoenix Park, for instance – but they’re already pretty stretched in terms of budgets and volunteers.

 “We’re not going to have budget issues forever,” said Phil Fieber, parks and recreation director for Eau Claire. Fieber is one of several area officials that hope the future will bring the time, money, and resources necessary for several unique ideas to come to life. Ideas such as a nighttime white lights parade, a broomball game between the police and fire departments, keeping Irvine Park Zoo open year-round, games like snow volleyball or golf, a snowshoe race in Phoenix Park, and a sledding/snowboarding facility on Eau Claire’s northwest side.

Anxious and willing to be there, we’ll keep our frostbit fingers crossed.