Do plunging temperatures, gray skies and the year's shortest days have to force us to huddle indoors? When we flick on the television, do we have to cringe at the weathermen's dire warnings of monster storms on the way?

Not at all, argues Jay Walljasper, a writer on world cities, in a Christmas-season bulletin for Project for Public Spaces. There's a tremendous amount that cities, towns, even individual neighborhoods can do to brighten the wintertime scene. And not just for Christmas and the holidays -- though that's a great start -- but until the crocuses bloom.

Metro Atlanta's traffic congestion is endangering its future growth, according to one of the nation's top site selection experts, who advises companies on where to send their jobs.

Atlanta's traffic problem has put it "at the point of no return," said Dennis J. Donovan. Lots of places have transportation funding problems, but Atlanta's congestion is the second worst in the nation, Donovan noted, and "the planning and funding to make sure this wouldn't happen hasn't been done."

The 97 year old Dapper Market in Amsterdam was voted 2007 best market of the year in Holland. With 250 stalls operating 6 days a week from 9am to 5pm, Dapper Market enjoys 15,000 visitors a day which is a total of 4.6 million a year.

In a recent innovative move, an environmentally-friendly water bus transport service commenced connecting the market with Central Station. There is also an idea to create the largest international food court in the Netherlands on Dapper Square, which is embraced by local shops and retailers who actively participate and profit from the market’s many promotional activities and events.

Live radio and television shows are often presented from the market, as well as major launches (the last was a SAAB car launch which was also televised in Sweden). The market area features fibre optics cable to facilitate broadband broadcasting. Festivals and live multi-cultural entertainment shows complement the market’s intensive promotional program.

The market will celebrate 100 years in 2010, along with three other major markets in Amsterdam. A city-wide and potentially European-wide celebration is planned to mark the event: Amsterdam European Market Metropolis. Much attention has been paid to the market’s vital role in supporting social integration and establishing and maintaining feelings of safety and community within the neighborhood.

An article about great pedestrian places in the U.S. and the local Minneapolis angle from Steve Berg.

Minneapolis, MN

Bikeability? Excellent. No. 2 in the country.

Walkability? Not so good. No. 17 among the 30 top metro areas. Down among St. Louis, Detroit and Houston. That hurts. Even Atlanta, the least pedestrian-friendly city I can imagine, came in three spots ahead of us. And the cities that Minneapolis-St. Paul likes to emulate — Denver, Portland and Seattle — all finished in the top 10, at Nos. 4, 5 and 6.

These results are part of a Brookings Institution report released Tuesday called "Footloose and Fancy Free: A Field Survey of Walkable Urban Places in the Top 30 U.S. Metropolitan Areas." Christopher Leinberger, the Brookings researcher, found 157 such places, but only two in the Twin Cities that qualified: the downtowns of Minneapolis and St. Paul. By Leinberger's reckoning, then, the Twin Cities' walkability ratio is one walkable district for every 1.6 million residents.

The whole metro region has an impressive trail system that promotes recreational walking and hiking. But that's not the point. The point is finding urban places where walking becomes part of the fabric of everyday life: walking to the coffee shop in the morning, walking to the movies, the grocery store, the laundry, the park, the transit stop, and so on. Leinberger's point is to highlight places where driving can be reduced in the course of everyday life.

Why? Because those kinds of places help mitigate climate change, help reduce dependence on unstable supplies and prices of oil, and help people live more active, healthy lives.