Thank you, Nola, for stepping out into the snow to show us where you are, so we can follow you. What you do matters, because the work we choose creates our cities. We help our cities evolve, which is a necessary survival skill. 

Designers of the built environment (landscape architects, architects and engineers) have a name for the phenomenon where people take a route in total disregard for the "official" route. It's the dirt trail through a grass field, or the path you see through the snow. It's not the path designers thought made the most sense; its the path that is truly where people want to travel.

The desire line is clear to see. 

When there are many people around you sticking to the official path, it is not easy to step off onto the desire line. This can't have been an easy project for Nola. I know she had the support of key people around her or this project would not have reached completion. I also trust that people all around her would have been wondering what she was doing, would it really work, was she doing the work she ought to be doing.  

Today, at the Winter Cities Shake-Up conference here in Edmonton, with folks attending from 52 cities and 12 countries, she heard that the path she is on makes perfect sense. 

Her desire line was their desire line too.

After seeing the trail, they will follow. That's how desire lines work. In the summer, you can't even see that someone has been on the trail the same trail as you. In the winter, you see if you have the first set of tracks in the snow, or the second, and it can be tough going. Once many have followed their desire line, it becomes not only clear, but inviting.  

This is how work works (very explicitly in Nola's case): 

Thank you, Nola, for stepping out into the snow to show us where you are, so we can follow you.