Building At Snow Day Scale

Plow capacity isn't a problem when we don't have to drive.

I worked in a campus dining hall my final two years of college. For all the memories that gave me, one that I’ll never forget is a night when we had some pretty bad weather. A coworker tried to call in and say they wouldn’t be able to make it to work because of the difficult road conditions. And it was a fair enough excuse, there was just one problem.

Their dorm was in the same building as the dining hall. They could literally walk to work without stepping foot outside. And we all knew it.

Nice try.

While my coworker obviously didn’t want to come to work that day, the reason he got caught actually demonstrates the power of “snow day scale.”

Photo by Ibrahim Rifath (via Unsplash)

Here in the Nashville area, we got anywhere from 5-7 inches of snow over the weekend. The grocery stores were packed in the days before it, school’s out until at least Thursday, and many stores are closed for at least the next 24 hours or so.

Places not named Buffalo or Minneapolis have a way of shutting down when they get even moderate snow. That’s largely due to lack of plows and other winter weather infrastructure, but much of that could be mitigated by urban design.

I’d love to be sitting in a coffee shop today with a warm beverage and a fire going. But my Toyota Corolla isn’t well-equipped to navigate the roads in these conditions. And most of the employees can’t get there safely either.

But what if the coffee shop as around the corner? And what if there were affordable housing options that would allow the barista to live within walking distance, too? And what if there was a corner store down the street, owned by one of my neighbors, who could still make it there rather easily in the weather, so we didn’t all have to flood the grocery stores in the days before the snow?

Life could largely continue at normal pace.

Snow Day Scale, of course, is essentially just applying the basic pillars of good urbanism. Diversity of Housing Types + Diversity of Use types + Walkability = “Snow Day Scale.”

What’s critical, though, is that mixed uses must not only be walkably accessible to me. They must also be accessible and nearby to those who work at the market, the coffee shop, and other types of establishments. If they’re snowed in at their apartment unit 15 miles away, the fact the buildings are close to me makes little difference.

There used to be something incredibly calming about a good snow day. But in a world where Zoom and other digital tools are undoing much of the ability we once had to truly take the day off, we’re now often left with only the disruptions the weather can bring.

There may not be a way to put Zoom back in the box and get back the snow days of old, but we still have an opportunity to build our neighborhoods in a way where the most essential parts of life can continue with relative ease.