Quote:
Originally Posted by flar
The snow melts in those places. The amount of snow Ottawa gets can vary quite a bit from year to year, but the difference is that it stays all winter because it's a lot colder. It's hardly snowed at all this year, but there's two feet in my yard right now, and it's been there since January.
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I'm unsure how many years you've been in Ottawa, but you need to take into account the most recent two winters (this year and the last season from 2013-2014) have been exceptionally cool winters for most of North America overall. However, the previous two winters in 2012-13 and 2011-2012 were fairly warm. In fact, 2012 was the year with the exceptional heat wave after a very warm start to the year (much of the mid-US was stuck in 110+ temperatures in late June and July). If you have only witnessed two Ottawa winters, it may be that you've seen the worst of the worst these past two years.
In regards to how weather affects urban development and transit usage patterns, I don't think the weather affects it so much as cultural and other issues. Within US boundaries, I largely see an east-west density divide. For example, suburban Philadelphia is every bit as bucolic and low density as Atlanta for the most part; however, Philadelphia is such an old city that was significantly large much earlier in history that its got a massive regional rail network that connects that old city to these old bucolic suburbs where lot sizes can be huge and density is very low. Same with Boston, an urban old core, but its suburbs are so low density it doesn't even match density levels in suburbs surrounding places like Dallas or Memphis.
The story is mirrored in the south. The 'new growth' cities of Raleigh, Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville are all four cities with quite bucolic, ultra low density housing for the most part, with significantly smaller urban cores than their northeastern counterparts due to the difference in the age that they grew up in. Yet even in the south, you see vastly more dense metropolitan areas (even if still single family home/auto oriented) the more westward you go. Florida is a bit different, but that's geographical. When you have marshland and water surrounding every corner, its hard to develop the bucolic Atlanta or Philly sprawl.
New Orleans is geographically locked as well, plus it was the most urban city in the southeast for over half of the country's entire history. Its old urban core is much like Philly in this regard: it makes it a more urban city.
In the north, suburbs in and around Minneapolis and Detroit have smaller lot sizes and more density than Philadelphia or Baltimore (speaking extremely suburban here, not comparing central cores at all).
Cities like Dallas and Memphis have suburbs that look more like Los Angeles or Denver than the large lot sizes of the suburban northeast. Yes, Philly is a larger more dense core than Memphis by far, but the suburbs in Memphis are more dense (suburban dense that is) than most Philly lot sizes for single family homes and they're usually more tightly packed together.
This east-west difference doesn't account for weather differences. Memphis and Dallas are certainly much warmer then Philly or Boston. In the actual west you have relatively small lot sizes from Portland to San Diego or Salt Lake to Phoenix. Its suburban, but a higher density form of suburbia like Memphis is in the southeast. Go figure. This topic could be discussed at length for weeks and there'd still be more questions than answers.
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