Leposa, Neva
- Department of Urban and Rural Development, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
Abstract
In northern cities, the long, dark winters shape everyday outdoor life in ways that are often overlooked in planning discourse. In Stockholm, Sweden, winters are less severe in terms of temperature and snow, but marked by prolonged darkness. Outdoor activity during those months is especially important for public health and wellbeing. Drawing on everyday sensibilities and inspired by affordance theory, this paper explores how residents of Botkyrka - a suburban municipality shaped by Sweden's modernist welfare planning - engage with snowy public spaces during the winter months and reflects on accessibility of recreation in winter. Through multi-seasonal observations and photographic documentation of footprints and informal activities, the paper examines the making of recreational spaces in snow-covered landscapes. The study shows that the "left-over" snowy ground, often overlooked in formal planning, become vital arenas for a spontaneous winter play and everyday recreation. These spaces support accessible outdoor activities, particularly for families whose routines are challenged by daylight limitations. The findings suggest that the legacy of generous green space from modernist welfare planning offers affordances for winter recreation, even as current urban planning trends towards densification put such spaces at risk. By foregrounding the daylight sensitive winter daily life, this paper argues for a more nuanced understanding of public space that includes the informal and temporal spaces for outdoor recreation. It calls for planning approaches that recognise ways in which people inhabit winter cities and stresses the importance of accessibility of open spaces for sustainable wellbeing albeit the contemporary compact city paradigm in planning.
Keywords
Affordances; Accessibility; Outdoor recreation; Winter city; Modernism
Published in
Local Environment
2025
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Landscape Architecture
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2025.2560359
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/144710