Jason Slaughter dismantles the most persistent myth in North American urban planning: that bad weather makes walkable cities impossible. He doesn't just dismiss the excuse; he proves it with a side-by-side autopsy of two failed and successful pedestrian malls, revealing that infrastructure, not the climate, dictates human behavior.
The Weather Fallacy
Slaughter opens with a blunt assessment of the common objection to urbanism. "The laziest excuse is definitely the weather," he writes, noting that it is the "most obvious objection that even idiots can immediately come up with." This framing is aggressive, but effective. It forces the reader to confront their own biases before the evidence is even presented. The author's core thesis is that the correlation between climate and city design success is negligible, a claim he backs by pointing to some of the world's most vibrant cities that endure terrible winters and rain.
He contrasts the fate of two specific streets to drive this point home. In Copenhagen, Denmark, a street was pedestrianized in 1962 despite shopkeepers and critics claiming the "dark, cold, and rainy days" would kill business. The result was a massive success, with shops thriving and the street becoming a global model. Conversely, Fresno, California, pedestrianized a street in 1964 under "warm and sunny" skies, yet the project eventually failed, forcing the city to reintroduce cars in 2017. Slaughter explains that the difference wasn't the sun; it was the surrounding environment. "It turns out that if you build a pedestrian street that most people have to drive to, few people will go there, no matter how sunny it might be." This comparison is the piece's strongest evidence, stripping away the weather variable to isolate the true culprit: urban sprawl and car dependency.
Critics might argue that extreme weather does impose a hard cap on outdoor activity, regardless of design. However, Slaughter counters this by highlighting the Netherlands, where "nearly every year we get a storm with heavy winds of over 90 km per hour," yet cycling remains the dominant mode of transport. The infrastructure makes the weather irrelevant.
The Infrastructure Imperative
The author shifts from historical case studies to the mechanics of why people choose to walk or cycle. He argues that safety and convenience outweigh meteorological conditions. He notes that in cities like Montreal or Minneapolis, which have snowy winters, cycling rates are high, while in sunny Southern California, they are near zero. "It was because you would die cycling here," Slaughter writes regarding his time in Sunnyvale, describing a landscape where people moved from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars. This vivid imagery underscores that the barrier is not the temperature, but the danger of the road.
The weather is irrelevant. Of course, the absolute highest level of cycling in any country in the world is the Netherlands. And yet, the weather sucks here, too.
Slaughter acknowledges that bad weather does reduce traffic, but he reframes this as a behavioral adaptation rather than a design failure. He points out that in the Netherlands, people simply delay trips or wear appropriate gear. "There is a very common expression which basically translates as you're not made of sugar, right?" he notes, illustrating a cultural shift where rain is an inconvenience to be managed, not a reason to stay inside. This cultural point is crucial; it suggests that what we perceive as a weather problem is actually a lack of cultural adaptation to our built environment.
However, the author admits a practical limitation in his own medium: video footage. He explains that he films less in bad weather because "video filmed in bad weather looks terrible" and his equipment isn't waterproof. This is a rare moment of self-reflection, acknowledging that his visual evidence might inadvertently reinforce the very bias he is fighting. He clarifies that he doesn't avoid bad weather to prove a point, but because the medium demands clarity. Still, the data he cites from studies on 90 American cities confirms that precipitation and temperature are not statistically significant predictors of bike commuting.
The Safety Variable
The final and most critical distinction Slaughter makes is between infrastructure quality and weather. He contrasts his experience in Amsterdam with Toronto. In Amsterdam, protected lanes and consistent snow clearing make cycling safe even in the dark and rain. In Toronto, even the best infrastructure is "extremely inconsistent," and drivers speed on residential streets. "I will always avoid riding a bicycle in the exact same weather in Toronto," he admits, contrasting it with his comfort in Amsterdam. This personal testimony drives home the argument that fear, not cold, is the real deterrent.
He concludes by noting that people adapt to the weather they are given. In Oslo and Stockholm, where snow is an annual norm, travel patterns remain stable. In Utrecht, where snow is rare, it disrupts travel. "Ultimately, people get accustomed to the weather they live in, and it's only extreme events outside of that norm that significantly changes travel patterns." This suggests that the solution to weather complaints isn't to wait for better skies, but to build better streets that make the current skies manageable.
Bottom Line
Slaughter's argument is a masterclass in separating correlation from causation, proving that the "weather excuse" is a smokescreen for poor urban design. While he briefly acknowledges that extreme weather does impact travel, his evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that safety and infrastructure are the true determinants of livability. The piece's greatest strength is its refusal to let the reader off the hook with a climate-based justification for car-centric failure. The biggest vulnerability lies in the sheer scale of retrofitting required to make North American cities safe enough to ignore the weather, a political and financial hurdle far greater than the meteorological one.