462: In Defense of Winter
It's winter (duh). Long nights, cold days, and, for much of the country, snow. But should we be cowering inside or embracing it? This week on Spark, we look at how public design and personal mindset can allow us to make the most—and even get excited by—winter. Isla Tanaka, Edmonton's WinterCity planner, explains how her city is helping patios stay open all year, keeping parks accessible, and using urban design to mitigate darkness and wind. Michele Acuto, Professor of Global Urban Politics at Melbourne University, explains how we can improve "the other 9-to-5": the urban nightscape, to make it more pedestrian and worker friendly. Mark Hadlari, a digital producer with CBC North's current affairs unit, describes sunrise at the end of the polar night. And Kari Leibowitz, a Stanford psychologist, describes what she learned by spending a year in Tromsø, Norway, where residents have very low winter depression and seasonal affective disorder rates, despite being 300 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. (Spoiler alert: It's all about mindset.)