[Acajack]

Yeah. I guess you are right. Thinking of Scandinavia now.

Originally Posted by isaidso

Winter isn't a valid excuse for depressing, dreary looking cities. We can't do anything about climate but we have full control over what we build. In northern climates, architecture and design are even more important yet we fail miserably to mitigate the grey of winter. Colour, texture, quality materials, ornamentation, landscaping, and people focused design are all vital but what do we do instead?

We install concrete sidewalks. They're grey, primitive, and make a dreary day even more depressing. We turn over 80% of our public realm to asphalt, our streets are lined with a chaotic mess of overhead electrical, the majority of our buildings are functional with little thought given to appearance, and even our new builds are often colourless sheets of glass a block wide and 100m+ tall.

We could absolutely have cities that look attractive/inviting on a grey winter day but our design choices ramp up the dreary depressing skies even more. Winter doesn't help but isn't why our cities look like this in March. It's the design choices we make .... or more accurately, not paying attention to design.