Build a Nature Dome
I thought of this earlier today, while I contemplated the snow and cold and bleakness outside. Not a new idea, but deserves consideration: build covered parks for improving mental health. Government sponsored with a small admission fee, just a park inside a dome. It would have to be big enough to give a sense of openness. And it would have to be otherwise treated as a public space. Spare us the ranks of wagon-pushers selling junk we don’t need. No concessions. Just a public park with some extra lighting and some plants than can stand a cool environment. Heating it would probably be too expensive, but just having people inside and no wind would make it much warmer than outside on the street. People need a place to get away in Winter without having to hop on a plane and fly away.
I totally agree that we should put public funds into affordable housing and caring for the homeless and other underpriveleged citizens before something like this, but more park space would increase the average happiness level in a city like Toronto by quite a bit.
Truthfully, we just don’t have enough public space in this city, especially in the Winter. Shopping malls just don’t cut it. Winter makes me crazy.