Also, the city has the most sophisticated snow removal in the western world. Both downtowns have extensive skyway systems to avoid walking outside.

The Twin Cities have 18 Fortune 500s to draw talent from. Meanwhile, Saint Paul has recently opened up a ton of prime commercial real estate at the Ford plant site (130 acres), Arden Hills armory site (>400 acres), Hillcrest Golf Club (110 acres), and the old EcoLab, Cray, and Gander Mountain buildings in the skyway system.

I’m curious what the supposed issues around snowstorms are. In the Midwest at least you typically lose a day of “work” (not going into the office) a couple times per winter and that’s only because of school closures. The roads are rarely an issue for more than a couple hours unless it’s REALLY bad storm.

I don’t see why you couldn’t keep running the fabs through that.

> Plenty of companies are testing in other areas

For example, many have tested in the Detroit area that does indeed get snow.

Seattle-tier rain probably isn't what you think. But if it operates in Seattle, it does need to handle snow --- at least enough to recognize it's snowing and find somewhere flat to chill out until the roads become drivable again.

I live in Houston. When it snows here we will sometimes see sand trucks driving around. They come down from North.

You can't just truck in AC though so I think your example is like comparing apples to oranges.

Wouldn’t that snow be just as annoying to deal with for getting to work?

With all due respect that's a load of hooey. Northern towns generally have capacity to clear a normal winter's snow. On the other hand, we have gotten well above a normal winter.

First, the snow event can last a couple of days. Even after the large amount of snow gets done, winds can exceed 30 mph with gusts above 50mph. This makes any sort of travel a non-starter. Worse are the storms that start with a sleet / light rain (early and late winter) and then freeze before the actual snows show up.

After the event, you are faced with moving the snow. Late winter storms are fairly brutal if the ditches are already filled with snow. This assumes you can get people to all the emergency equipment in a timely manner. This also assumes the budget is holding for all the overtime.

You can easily be stuck in your residence for 3 days and sometimes a week. Hope the power company is on the ball because that's a load of fun in itself. The 96 storm in ND had people stuck for a week if you were anywhere off the main route. Never mind the damage to the power grid and the setup for the 97 flood.

This problem is not unique to California. I felt the same during my stay in Overland Park, Kansas (a small suburb close to Kansas City, Missouri).

What was also noteworthy to me was how downtown kcmo was different when it snowed. They usually (always?) cleaned the sidewalks in downtown kcmo. However, Overland Park sidewalks were grossly neglected with snow from the streets often piled on the sidewalk with no apparent concern for pedestrians.

I spent most of my life in Minnesota, and even there, people think they can handle snow (which they do better than folks here in the Puget Sound region). But every year, there are huge pileups, gruesome accidents, slowdowns, etc. They, just as people east of the Cascades, have more experience, but I would stop short of saying that they 'handle it just fine.'

> But it’s hard to judge the risk of something that’s never happened.

That isn't even a Black Swan; it's a known unknown.

In the absence of systems for snow removal, most people wouldn't be driving in 2 feet of snow either (yes, some do it, but some people drive in all sorts of reckless circumstances).

The cities in the intersection of "viable to thrive without a car" and "get a lot of snow" mostly do a good job of dealing with the latter to preserve the former. They usually clear snow quickly on the thoroughfares, sidewalks and bike lanes and have other solutions (tunnels, non-road transit, etc) for managing the more difficult journeys.

I don't want to go west of Buffalo during a snowstorm.

I would imagine not in Minnesota? I think this is measure to limit traffic in places where snow is rare occurance and causes a spike in accidents.

There doesn't need to be sufficient yearly yield. This isn't just trying to pay for itself by collecting electricity on clear days to melt snow. It'd still be a great solution if it uses far more electricity than it collects because it's competing with snow removal trucks. If it could be cheaper and more efficient than having trucks driving around dropping salt and plowing, it'd be amazing.

Even if it's a little more costly, the ability to keep all the roads clear, all the time, would be incredible and worth some added expense. Think about how much safer the roads would be if they could remain free of snow.