Your input needed – I’m curious if the same conversations go on about snow in your cities that go on here in the Syracuse area. Mainly Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester. The argument every year is that is it good to brag about all of the snow we all get or to just keep quiet about it and hope that people don’t see the 4 – 5 foot snowbanks at times when they visit the area. Is this the same conversation in your city about the snowfall you get? Don’t brag about our snow.
Feel free to chime in here or at Sean Kirst’s place on the web. Sean, who is a great journalist for the Post Standard and Syracuse.com had a good article in the paper the other day. It’s about a gentleman from the Syracuse area, Russ Andrews who has been saying that he doen’t think it’s smart bragging or promoting our cities as being one of the snowiest bigger cities in the country on average and even in all of North America. Russ feels it hurts the city having that kind of reputation. Keep in mind that Russ Andrews is just making a fun spirited argument and shouldn’t be seen as a bad guy 😉 You can read the article at http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2013/02/amid_winterfest_russ_andrews_a.html
Sean and I have seen eye to eye on this since we first met and we both believe we should be promoting the Hell out of the snow our cities get. Let me also add that Sean is the main reason that the Golden Snowball contest was revived to what it is today with his articles, conversations about the snow and so on.
Sean, like myself vision drawing people to the area because of the amount of snow we normally receive each winter season. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, It snows here in Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester and no matter how hard some of the people in Syracuse want to hide it by shoveling it under the curbs it’s not going to work.
What needs to be done in my opinion is to bring the snow lovers from out of town into town because of the high amounts of snow we receive. Open up some of our state owned land in the area for snowmobilers, find a place where skiers can ski in the area besides the nearby ski slopes that we already have. Open up the state fair grounds for the snowmobilers and try to bring in the top sledders around the country for either races or the extreme sports shows. Make Syracuse, Buffalo and Rochester a stop on their tour every year. Open the roadways (some of them) for a weekend and let the sledders use them. I miss the days when all you heard during a good storm were sleds cruising up and down the streets.
There is so much country side land around all of the Golden Snowball cities that it wouldn’t be hard to promote cross country skiing. Look at all of the lakes around central and upstate New York that would be perfect to draw in people to take advantage of the frozen lakes for ice fishing. Have a couple fishing tournaments to draw out of towners to visit our areas. Fill the hotels with fun filled winter sporting events. Come up with something fun and different each weekend for the snow lovers to draw them to the area. Open up some of the bigger hills for the kids to go sledding on.
I was reading a few years back about how well Quebec City does with their annual winter carnival they have. I think the last I looked they were drawing almost a million people to their area each year including a lot of out of towners including snow enthusiast’s from the United States. No doubt it’s a big investment, I think it was over a million dollars spent on the event but they are bringing in millions of dollars to their local businesses on that investment. Sure it would take a few years to get it going as good as Quebec city does with their winter carnival but in the long run if done right it would be well worth it.
Do people from other states really like snow though. I just looked at my visitor stats from the National Snow contest to see how many visitors were coming to the site. In the last 30 days goldensnowglobe.com had over 40,000 visitors from pretty much every state in the country. So I would have to say that yes, people from all over like snow. Build and they will come 😉
Have an awesome weekend all and make sure you check out Sean’s latest article at http://www.syracuse.com/kirst/index.ssf/2013/02/amid_winterfest_russ_andrews_a.html and don’t be too hard on Russ 😉
Most people complain about snow because they are LAZY and they see it as work, having to plow or shovel it, drive in it, brush it off the car, sometimes off their roofs, etc…People also complain about the cold, which is something that comes along with snow. Why do you think people leave NY state? Yeah the taxes are a bit excessive in some areas, but your living in NY, the Empire state, one of the most beautiful and diverse places on the planet! Well, actually most leave for warmer weather and move to NC, SC, FL, AZ, CA. They want the warm weather and to not have to deal with snowstorms. Snow is a natural beauty and it’s such an amazing phenomenon which fascinates me each time it occurs. One of the reasons I moved to Syracuse area for the snow. It’s so pure and adds such beauty to the landscape. It’s actually a good thing that the snow keeps people away, (even my family will not visit during the winter months, as they think it’s like the north pole here December through March), as it keeps Syracuse’s population under control. The city has grown steadily over the past few years and will continue to grow over the next decade. I would not want the pop. here to rise to 450,000, it would be too crowded and jobs would be harder to get and real estate would sky rocket. Thank you, snow, for keeping Syracuse a nice, smaller city, beautiful place to live!!
Frank, I’m with you when it comes to the snow. I guess I take after my dad when he was alive. He would just sit by the window and watch a decent storm and watch the cars trying to make it up the hill sliding all over the place. The tires & road crews weren’t as good back then. During a decent storm people could be driving by my house at 1:00 am and see me out there shoveling. Nothing like being out when no one is around during a good snow storm. Just so peaceful! A lot of the time I’ll jump in the car after and take a short ride just to get in the middle of it when the roads are empty 😉
Two of my kids moved to a couple of the states you mentioned. My son is in Tucson, AZ and my daughter moved to SC. Unfortunately they both love where they are 🙁
Good day all –
– I lived in Syracuse for one winter – LOTS of snow. I really liked the city and looked forward to being there a bit longer. I had no car while there, but did use a friends about once a week. I’ve waited for the bus, outside, in below zero temps, I noticed sundown before 3 in the afternoon. The population was about 175,000 at the time. The city had dropped to as little as 125,000 it was reported and now is about 140,000.
— I guess you promote what you have, in hand, to promote.
— Then I lived in Fresno, California for about three years. The city was virtually the same size in population back then – about 175,000. Fresno is now over 450,000 – and has NO snow. Hmmm. Although that ‘Tule Fog’ is cold, damp, and nearly opaque – it ain’t snow. Is that what prompted the growth of one over the other. I have no idea – both great places to live I think.
— I also lived a bit North of Worchester – also with no car – and drifts of snow (and snow plow mounds) of nearly 9′. Wandered Boston on many weekends for yet another winter.
— Now I live in Phoenix – again. When we drove into Phoenix the welcome sign said Population 93,000 – ! Now the Metro area is about 4.5 million. We had snow (that stayed on the ground for over a day) just a few days ago. An extremely rare event. Quite a few years ago the Chamber of Commerce chose a slogan to promote Phoenix … Phoenix is HOT! (yes they did). We now have days where our streets exceed 160-170 degrees at the surface, and 130+ on grass – and nearing lows of 100 at night. People keep moving here – no snow, no hurricanes, no tornadoes – just that dry heat. Funny.
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“I guess you promote what you have, in hand, to promote.” Well said Barry!!!