Board 8 > azuarc tries not to be a NIMBY

(+) Yeah! (+)

I bought a house in the town where I grew up about 4 years ago. It's a split home (I dunno what that's called where it's like a rowhome but you only share the building with one family) at the edge of a grid of blocks. Across the street is the old state hospital, a mental facility that in its heyday had like 30 functioning buildings across a fairly sizable campus. These days, it's still open, but they're only using like 4 of those buildings and the rest are either in disrepair or torn down, which means it's land just sitting there, asking to be developed. The state hospital occupies about a quarter of a major square of land nestled between three municipalities, with the other three-quarters being mostly a park.

Here's my artist's rendition of the local map so I don't have to dox myself:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/8/848e7188.png
Red dot is where I live. Pretty much everything surrounding the southern half of that park/hospital complex is housing, some of it the not-rowhomes I live in and some being small single homes. The rest of the county is all quintessential American suburbia.

I knew they were planning to redevelop some of the land in the state hospital, but I thought it was just a small chunk of it on the eastern end. I had heard something about building apartments, and given that my experience over the last two years with Cities Skylines has led to Youtube feeding me a steady diet of urbanism videos, I figured that's probably a good thing. So hey, good for them. Go for it.

Today I received a notice in the mail giving notice of a proposed plan that is going to redevelop sixty-eight acres into 69,000 ft^2 of commercial space, 230,000 of industrial, and 728 new residences -- about one-third apartment and the rest town homes. And I'm like :surprisedpikachu:.

Needless to say, this is way more than I ever imagined them building. I can imagine developments elsewhere that look something like this and...it doesn't fit the character of the area at all. The state hospital currently is rustic and idyllic, with lots of forested area on the border between there and the park. The hospital grounds themselves are full of tall, old trees and wide open spaces between buildings. It's nice to walk around, aside from all the poorly-paved surfaces. I'm not exactly fretting my "walking space" because I can walk around developed blocks and the park is right behind it, so I'm not all "not in my backyard, mister!" Also, I'm not one to stand in the way of progress, however, I do have a few concerns.

The first is that, as I said, it doesn't fit the character. Or at least I assume it doesn't. I only have this notice, and will be heading down to Municipal Hall when I can to look at the development plan. I'm not worried about the commercial -- that's probably a few corner stores and one medium-sized grocery store, and the industrial probably accompanies the existing facilities along the east edge of the area. I can't precisely picture how much 230k ft^2 is, but given what's already in that area, I'm not too worried with one notable exception.

The second is that a project this size is going to be long and noisy, right across from where I'm living. We already have so many roads torn up with construction projects right now. This will be a major nuisance. But also temporary. I can manage.

However, the third issue is traffic. The road right along the edge of the property is used by locals as a quick access from one side of town to the other, given that the other roads that run parallel have tons of stops and lights along them. Despite that, it's not a big road. Two lanes and enough space for cars to park on one side. It can handle existing traffic just fine, but it's already handling a pretty heavy load. Add another, I dunno, 1200 cars just for the residential, plus a slew of business and light industry, and it's going to be atrocious at certain times of the day. And as near as I can tell, there isn't a reasonable way to add carrying capacity. Even if they widened the road, which they could do, the roads it connects to aren't any larger, and the intersections where they meet are very contentious during rush hour. Or when school lets out since to the west of the park is the high school and an elementary school.

I'm really kinda blown away by the scope of this project. On one hand, I'm sure it would bring tons of revenue to the town, which is really strapped compared to the surrounding areas for a variety of reasons I won't go into. And I do generally support what I imagine is probably decent land use (at least compared to building a billion unaffordable giant single homes like most developers in this area do.) But man, I dunno about this project.

There are two meetings where the public can attend a presentation and offer comments. One is when I work, so I'm hoping I can attend the other, next week, and learn whatever I can before then, but yeah, this is so above and beyond what I expected that even I'm inclined to dig in my heels a little. Any recommendations?

enjoy the higher property taxes once they assess your property as being worth more due to the sweet nearby upgrades

azuarc posted...

given that my experience over the last two years with Cities Skylines has led to Youtube feeding me a steady diet of urbanism videos

So you're probably in the top 1% most yimby people in the US. Have you thought about how much deep seated propaganda was required to make you still feel a knee jerk rejection to this? It's pretty mind blowing. It's not about reason or education or even emotion. You were raised to think nimby, it's in your nature, and you can't control it.

Now with that out of the way, you can stop listening to the fear and jusg look at the actual facts. Look at the actual plan and the actual data behind housing and traffic patterns, and follow that.

Maybe watch 1 or 2 more videos on induced demand since you described a perfect example of the concept, but you missed the implications.

azuarc posted...

728 new residences -- about one-third apartment and the rest town homes

This seems wrong though, unless the green part is crazy huge. That's almost 500 townhouses. It would make sense with apartments cuz you can have 500-1000 in one building, but townhouses developments are usually like 80 units.

azuarc posted...

It's a split home (I dunno what that's called where it's like a rowhome but you only share the building with one family)

A duplex?

foolm0r0n posted...

This seems wrong though, unless the green part is crazy huge. That's almost 500 townhouses. It would make sense with apartments cuz you can have 500-1000 in one building, but townhouses developments are usually like 80 units.

Based on his numbers its like 6ish acres of industrial+commercial combined. Even assuming 20 townhomes an acre, this is easily 5x more residential area

I looked up my neighborhood's acreage for comparison and it does make sense. 68 acres is pretty massive.

Oh, I certainly understand induced demand. It's less a matter of the roads being designed with 13 lanes and more the configuration and lack of other routes for the traffic. I'm fairly certain there will not be any means of transportation available directly to this area, either. There's a rail line close enough that some people will walk it, but suburbanites legitimately do not understand the concept of taking the train anywhere if they have to walk 10 minutes to reach it, and there's no possibility of extending the line. There's a bus line that runs through there, but that's about it. I will, of course, see what the plans are and watch the presentation before making any real impressions, but adding more traffic is...well, I suppose the argument here is that people will find a way to alter their behavior.

And in effect, that also just recently happened. The road passing by along the edge of the property goes over a bridge at one end and that bridge had been out for most of last year. They just rebuilt it. But in the meanwhile, all the traffic that usually went through that area had to be redirected. It was absolutely terrible for the first two weeks, as everyone tried to take the very next road over...and then people adapted. To an extent, at least. It was still worse than if that road had been open the whole time, just not nearly as severe.

foolm0r0n posted...

unless the green part is crazy huge.

It's a little over a square mile. (690 acres.) It's a very large square cut out of the center of our slice of suburban sprawl. (The area where I live is about the only part of the county that can't really be described as sprawl.)

Colegreen_c12 posted...

A duplex?

I guess that's the right word. I called it that once to a contractor before they came over, and they got super confused, telling me that's when you have a home above another home, so I've steered away from calling it that. But that guy was probably just being dumb.

.

Anyway, gonna head across town and see what info they have available before the meeting.

Its definitely a duplex.

azuarc posted...

(The area where I live is about the only part of the county that can't really be described as sprawl.)

But dense development "doesn't fit the character" of the area? Is this a rural area that sprawl is just now starting to reach, or do you live right next to an actual city but insist that further sprawl is preferable to building new things close by?

Definitely help fight this so the developer builds something smaller.

There's a place in my area that vehemently opposed a nearly 200-unit apartment complex on a two-lane road that finds itself frequently blocked by wandering fowl (this is not a joke), because that many new residents would cause frequent accidents and traffic jams. The road cannot be expanded due to how the existing residential properties are set up; this complex is going where a crumbling barn was previously. The city deferred this project and asked the developer to come up with a proposal for one with fewer units, due to these residents' safety concerns. There were a few wackos in this group - ones who wanted just townhomes instead, as "that's what's currently there" - but they were the only ones I found unreasonable; I agreed that the project should be smaller for safety purposes.

NIMBYism is more an apprehension to change of any kind. Another area in town was crying "NIMBY! NIMBY! NIMBY!" when they wanted to put two loud military jets at the airport, and when asked where these jets should be instead, they suggested a smaller municipal airport that only handles small planes - no jets, passenger planes, or anything of the sort. That airport would've needed substantial upgrades for that and it would've devalued others' property far more than theirs was devalued, since they already have plane noise, and this just upped the frequency a LITTLE bit. I made fun of these people. There was literally no other reasonable alternative within 50 miles.

You sound more like the former group. You want the scope of the project to be smaller to better fit the area as it is now, instead of doing something that it's not equipped to handle in hopes that it causes more growth that doesn't make logistical sense. Developers often get greedy and lack foresight to the problems that come with what they want to build.

azuarc posted...

Oh, I certainly understand induced demand. It's less a matter of the roads being designed with 13 lanes and more the configuration and lack of other routes for the traffic.

It applies the same to 2-lane traffic as it does to 13-lane. You're describing a street that is used heavily by thru-traffic because it's convenient (induced demand). When it becomes less convenient, the only possible option is that thru-traffic decreases proportionally, which is a great thing. That's why I say you don't understand induced demand if you're afraid traffic will get worse. If you care about reducing traffic, you want to make your street as inconvenient as possible. Just like the parallel roads with lots of stop signs you described.

There will be more local cars (maybe 1000+ as you say) but local traffic PALES in comparison to thru-traffic. That amount of local cars probably won't even be noticeable. The worst case is if this new mixed use neighborhood becomes super popular and people want to drive to it all the time. Even in that case, it's replacing all the thru-traffic with actual destination traffic, so it won't be any worse than now. Also then there would be far fewer local cars, because you would able to live in this magical neighborhood that has everything you need within walking distance.

The weirdest thing (and this is totally widespread issue that applies to basically everyone, def not just you) is this feeling of authority that homeowners get, that you're now the guy who reviews and approves any nearby development. But you're just some guy who signed a loan. You weren't elected as mayor, nor won a bid as an engineer. You deserve nothing and your opinion is not really worth anything more than your renter neighbors, or even your theoretical future neighbors. The only thing you're entitled to is the 3-10x appreciation of your real estate, which a sane person would be quite happy with.

You can get involved with the local politics, but that also doesn't require any ownership, just showing up to meetings and doing the work. But would you really want to donate that energy to the nimbys?

foolm0r0n posted...

If you care about reducing traffic, you want to make your street as inconvenient as possible.

This gives me an idea: Deal with traffic by hiring armed carjacker gangs to target non-local drivers. Have any governments tried this before?

Xeybozn posted...

But dense development "doesn't fit the character" of the area? Is this a rural area that sprawl is just now starting to reach, or do you live right next to an actual city but insist that further sprawl is preferable to building new things close by?

I'm not describing this adequately. I meant more the character of the neighborhood. Architecture, etc. There's a place across town where they inserted a 5-over-1 in the middle of blocks of duplexes, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. The state hospital itself has a very rustic feel that I know won't be completely preserved, but I'm wondering if they even try.

foolm0r0n posted...

There will be more local cars (maybe 1000+ as you say) but local traffic PALES in comparison to thru-traffic.

Not true thru-traffic. Nobody would go out of their way to take this road. But anyone moderately local will use this road rather than cutting straight out to the "bigger" roads.

And I agree that there's the potential for upside if they add destinations beyond just the housing. I dunno how much mileage we get out of that much devoted commercial space. It's also possible the housing community has some amenities, like a local pool or something. But until I know that, I'm a little alarmed.

foolm0r0n posted...

The weirdest thing (and this is totally widespread issue that applies to basically everyone, def not just you) is this feeling of authority that homeowners get, that you're now the guy who reviews and approves any nearby development. But you're just some guy who signed a loan. You weren't elected as mayor, nor won a bid as an engineer. You deserve nothing and your opinion is not really worth anything more than your renter neighbors, or even your theoretical future neighbors. The only thing you're entitled to is the 3-10x appreciation of your real estate, which a sane person would be quite happy with.

Right. This is really why I started this thread. To talk through what's going through my head as I come to terms with being on both sides of the issue. On one hand, I support progression, which this most likely represents. On the other, the scope of the project shocked me. At the very least, it sounds incredibly ambitious and I want to know more before I sign on.

Unfortunately, I went over to the planning office and the guy there didn't even know there would be people coming in to inquire about this sort of thing. He even photocopied the letter I brought with me, probably to show his boss, who is supposed to call me later. Barring that, I'll just have to wait for the public meeting next week.

edit: Just got an e-mail from the boss, which basically said "I recommend you attend the public meeting."

azuarc posted...

Not true thru-traffic. Nobody would go out of their way to take this road. But anyone moderately local will use this road rather than cutting straight out to the "bigger" roads.

But if the road no longer is as convenient for the local thru-traffic, won't drivers just use those larger roads? People obviously won't use the road if it's non-stop traffic because there wouldn't be any point

Okay, I got the current plan. Apparently it's still VERY early in development and the meetings are to get community feedback before they start making anything more concrete. I doodled on this a little to help with the orientation since it's rotated compared to what I drew above, using like a third of the pink part of my previous sketch. Posting externally because it's a large file and I don't want to skimp on resolution.

https://ibb.co/m5pW6WL

I live basically across the street from the "podium building." The red road that's vertical on this pic and nearly horizontal before is the collector I discussed earlier.

All things considered, I don't really feel bad about this. This is not anywhere near as large, geographically, as I had anticipated it needing to be. I guess my whole sense of scale is off given how big the properties in question are. It...looks kinda nice? I have a few unresolved questions, still, but I've gotten over my urge to dig in my heels.

Xeybozn posted...

This gives me an idea: Deal with traffic by hiring armed carjacker gangs to target non-local drivers. Have any governments tried this before?

Several in Central America pretty sure. It definitely reduces traffic. Too expensive for most places though.

azuarc posted...

https://ibb.co/m5pW6WL

Damn that's sooooo much surface parking. 1.5/unit residential is so stupid. Flex/office area looks terrible, 1-story buildings and 50% of the land is surface parking, and no walkability to there either. Just why? Is land so cheap on this plot that they can afford such poor land use? Mixed use and supermarket area looks sweet though. Could easily be a fully car-free community.

It's true that plans always start huge and then they get torn down to something mediocre or even actively harmful. If you want to get involved, it would be good to make sure the good parts of this remain. Nimbys would look at this and demand killing the apartments (if not all the housing altogether) and doubling the parking.

In fact, this would benefit a ton from eliminating parking minimums. And/or legalize higher heights, so they can build parking vertically. Those are 2 big issues that are becoming way more popular everywhere nowadays. You would have a ton of precedents to argue your case.

foolm0r0n posted...

Damn that's sooooo much surface parking. 1.5/unit residential is so stupid. Flex/office area looks terrible, 1-story buildings and 50% of the land is surface parking, and no walkability to there either. Just why? Is land so cheap on this plot that they can afford such poor land use? Mixed use and supermarket area looks sweet though. Could easily be a fully car-free community

Where do you live, this is super common in a ton of places. And i'm assuming this is a suburban area where "car-free" communities don't really exist.

foolm0r0n posted...

parking vertically

If you mean parking garages, parking garages are absurdly expensive compared to parking lots and should be avoided if not neccessary

1.5 per residential isn't that much in a suburban area. I bet those folks end up fighting over spaces. I'm more bothered by the 4 per 1000 ft^2 of retail, because there is no way that much commercial property warrants 278 spaces. They could axe that entire extra lot along the south side.

azuarc posted...

1.5 per residential isn't that much in a suburban area. I bet those folks end up fighting over spaces. I'm more bothered by the 4 per 1000 ft^2 of retail, because there is no way that much commercial property warrants 278 spaces. They could axe that entire extra lot along the south side.

The problem is the supermarket might not have enough parking without the southern lot (unless it's going to be mainly used by townhome people walking), and likely too much with it. It's also weird to have parking for it separated by a street like that. I feel like if they moved the commercial building attached to the supermarket to the lot below (and maybe expanded it to two buildings) both problems would be solved

Colegreen_c12 posted...

If you mean parking garages, parking garages are absurdly expensive compared to parking lots and should be avoided if not neccessary

So fully legalize them. And stop using taxpayer money to subsidize the massive utility costs for inefficient land use. Then the market can figure it out.

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Where do you live, this is super common in a ton of places. And i'm assuming this is a suburban area where "car-free" communities don't really exist.

I said it was bad, not rare. It's a new development being planned in 2024. It should follow modern standards and acknowledge the housing supply crisis.

And car-free people live everywhere, especially where there's retail which requires poor workers, since owning a car is absurdly expensive. But there are also a bunch of trendy car-free places being built in places just like this. Again, it's 2024, not 1965.

foolm0r0n posted...

So fully legalize them. And stop using taxpayer money to subsidize the massive utility costs for inefficient land use. Then the market can figure it out

Nothing to do with legality, its like 20-30x as expensive to make and upkeep a parking garage. Its just a waste of resources in suburbs unless your at like a mall

foolm0r0n posted...

I said it was bad, not rare. It's a new development being planned in 2024. It should follow modern standards and acknowledge the housing supply crisis.

You are confusing modern standards with your made up "standards".

This is not a big city, you will need a car in the suburbs for the vast majority of people. If this was a big city sure, cars don't make sense.

I'd go further but i'm getting the impression you have never actually lived in a suburb

The problem with suburbs, in principal, is that they are basically built for the explicit purpose of allowing the automotive industry to maintain a chokehold over society.

The development mentioned here will hardly turn my area into a 5-minute or 15-minute city, so regardless of how well-implemented it is, the people here will still need cars.

However, that supermarket isn't really a "supermarket." The average Giant, Weis, or Acme in this area is at least double that, and Wegman's is even larger. The most parking spaces I've seen used at Giant (sans holidays or snowstorms) is about 15 deep and 8 across, so we'll assume I'm bad at estimating and round up to 200. It's across the lot from a strip mall of minor stores and between them there's probably 1000 spaces. The only reason they're there is become of minimum parking standards, which are based on absolutely nothing.

Colegreen_c12 posted...

Nothing to do with legality

Then why is it illegal and the alternative enormously subsidized

Colegreen_c12 posted...

I'd go further but i'm getting the impression you have never actually lived in a suburb

Such a weird thing to rest an argument on (and hilariously wrong). No one who lives in a shitty suburb thinks it's good. It's just the place with cheaper housing. The demand is always for the better designed (i.e. more dense and less car dependent) neighborhoods. All the suburbs that have those are blowing up right now, and of course developers want to build new ones.

azuarc posted...

The development mentioned here will hardly turn my area into a 5-minute or 15-minute city,

No 1 development has ever done that. And yet they exist. It's all a cumulative wave. If this development is done right and catches the wave, it could be a huge difference in appreciation for your house.

And you mentioned it's a square mile plot - that's literally the size of a 15 min city. With space left over for the decrepit overgrown hospital too!

Well, the park is a square mile. But yeah.

foolm0r0n posted...

Such a weird thing to rest an argument on (and hilariously wrong). No one who lives in a shitty suburb thinks it's good. It's just the place with cheaper housing. The demand is always for the better designed (i.e. more dense and less car dependent) neighborhoods. All the suburbs that have those are blowing up right now, and of course developers want to build new ones.

I was going to argue but I simply don't care enough to get into an argument about this. I will just say you are 100% wrong about everyone wanting this and you really need to learn to stop projecting your views like it's everyone's views.

I think there's a large portion of urban and suburban people who would love to have the magical combination of big single family home with a nice sized yard, that's also somehow within very short (5-10 minutes max) walking distance of lots of amenities (grocery store, gym, coffee shop, restaurants, etc.).

Unfortunately, that's simply not a reasonable reality for a very large swath of the country. You can have the home you want, but you've got to drive for the amenities. Or, you can have the amenities but you have to settle for a apartment/condo/townhouse/rowhouse.

Bizarrely, I live in one of those few areas where that magical combo is possible and the prices are fucking astronomical (think $1.5-2+ million for a SFH). They're trying to build out more "missing middle" types of housing (think duplexes, triplexes, etc.) but there's so much pushback from the NIMBY home owners who "got theirs" and also complain about taxes being too high because their land is now worth a fortune.

Colegreen_c12 posted...

I was going to argue but I simply don't care enough to get into an argument about this. I will just say you are 100% wrong about everyone wanting this and you really need to learn to stop projecting your views like it's everyone's views.

It's the market, not my views. "No one wants to live there, it's too expensive"

And I do realize about 95% of suburbans disagree with me and fully agree with you. That's why I NEED to talk about it, while you can comfortably choose to detach. I just feel for you since I obviously know how living in a suburb makes you think. The stockholm syndrome and psychology is super harmful, and it doesn't need to be.

foolm0r0n posted...

It's the market, not my views. "No one wants to live there, it's too expensive"

And I do realize about 95% of suburbans disagree with me and fully agree with you. That's why I NEED to talk about it, while you can comfortably choose to detach. I just feel for you since I obviously know how living in a suburb makes you think. The stockholm syndrome and psychology is super harmful, and it doesn't need to be.

I have everything I need within a 10 minute drive as well as 50+ restaurant options. In addition a car to drive to my family when needed etc.

And I live in florida so i'm 100% not walking to places in the summer.

Feel free to think that that's some awful living condition though

You need to learn how to see things outside of your own view. In fact Florida is one of the leaders of modern car free developments, so just lift your head up and look around a bit.

Colegreen_c12 posted...

And I live in florida so i'm 100% not walking to places in the summer.

This sounds more like an argument that people shouldn't live in Florida tbh.

If it's not "too hot to walk outside" in the summer it's "too cold to walk outside" in the winter. And some places have both!

Most the country isn't good for walking for a season.

There's a good chance you're getting a more than just corner stores. I don't know how far away your nearest Target, Walmart, or Kohls are, but consider those as real possibilities. If there's a public comment period, take the time to say something about the traffic congestion and ask that they improve the roads before setting out on this project. There's no stopping the project, but you might as well try to prevent the inevitable problems that come with it.

Xeybozn posted...

This sounds more like an argument that people shouldn't live in Florida tbh.

As someone who hates the heat, If all of my family and friends weren't here I definitely wouldn't live here

Maniac64 posted...

If it's not "too hot to walk outside" in the summer it's "too cold to walk outside" in the winter. And some places have both!

Most the country isn't good for walking for a season.

Too cold to walk outside is a state of mind. It builds character.

As someone who lives in the relative suburbs, I hate needing a car and all the bullshit expenses that come with owning a car. Cars fuckin suck and most of the people who drive them fuckin suck

PeaceFrog posted...

Too cold to walk outside is a state of mind. It builds character.

Someone hasn't been in -10 to -20 degree weather.

Temperatures where 10 minutes gets you frostbite on any exposed skin.

Uglyface2 posted...

There's a good chance you're getting a more than just corner stores. I don't know how far away your nearest Target, Walmart, or Kohls are, but consider those as real possibilities.

Nah, not enough square footage for that. There's a mid-sized grocery that opened in the area called Lidl -- I presume they exist elsewhere. I'm thinking it'll be about that size.

What would be nice in that area is a gym, tbh. I don't mind driving to the grocery store since I'll probably buy more than two hands worth of stuff, but it would be nice not to have to get in the car to reach a place where I could work out. Not room for both, though, and overall, the grocery is more important to more people.

if the grocery store is close just walk there more than once a week and you'll carry less bags at a time

Maniac64 posted...

If it's not "too hot to walk outside" in the summer it's "too cold to walk outside" in the winter. And some places have both!

Most the country isn't good for walking for a season.

Most of the country you can walk outside year-round if you're willing to be a bit uncomfortable.

I know that's a tough ask with Americans though.

NFUN posted...

if the grocery store is close just walk there more than once a week and you'll carry less bags at a time

Pff, do I look European to you?

I'd probably just get one of those little two-story push-carts. There's one lady in the neighborhood who uses the nearby bus stop -- without her, I wouldn't even know it was there -- and she always has one wherever she goes.

Didn't the plan say there was a gym? Oh it says sports complex. That usually means there's a gym or at least rock climbing or something.

Maniac64 posted...

Someone hasn't been in -10 to -20 degree weather.

Temperatures where 10 minutes gets you frostbite on any exposed skin.

Do people in -20 weather really have to worry about accidentally going outside with exposed skin?

foolm0r0n posted...

Didn't the plan say there was a gym? Oh it says sports complex. That usually means there's a gym or at least rock climbing or something.

If you look at the plan, there's a very obvious location for a baseball diamond.

foolm0r0n posted...

Do people in -20 weather really have to worry about accidentally going outside with exposed skin?

Hard to cover all the skin on your face, particularly around your eyes.

I guess everyone could walk around in ski goggles but I've never seen it.

We just shut everything down and the news tells you not to go outside.

Are they are even that many places in the US where daytime temperatures regularly drop below -10? Not that it needs to be that cold to make walking as transportation unfeasible, but that just seem like dangerous conditions for anything. It'd be like saying people in Florida need to drive because walking isn't safe during hurricanes.

Guys, the extreme temperature thing wasn't an argument against walking being feasible in cold states. Walking is absolutely feasible in Northern states most of the year.

It was a half joking response to this post:
PeaceFrog posted...

Too cold to walk outside is a state of mind. It builds character.

Because as you said, it can absolutely get dangerously cold out where it is definitely not a state of mind.

Back in my day we walked uphill both ways in -10 degrees before wind chill and 2 feet of snow, just to get a sandwich, and we liked it

Went to the planning meeting today. Guess I'll push this to page 2, though I dunno how much I really have to say about it.