Finding Joy in Urban Winters

Cities excel in balmy weather. Summer is the season of desultory bike rides, of food truck festivals and concerts in the park, of long walks and dinners on the patio at the cafe. Then the temperature plummets, those delightful urban artifacts are buried under soul-crushing mounds of snow, and you and your seasonal affective disorder start wondering why you don’t live in Arizona.

For cities in America’s Snow Belt, the fallout of harsh winters can be severe. While more than 2.2 million people moved to Sun Belt states between 2014 and 2015—bright, warm places like Texas, California, and Florida—only a tenth of that number moved to the Midwest and Northeast. For those who already live there, the annual onslaught of subzero temps often spurs a desire to flee…or at least burrow for months.