Phoenix’s Rapid Growth Magnified Its Vulnerability to Heat
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Meanwhile the city continues to hobble its trail system by shutting down drinking fountains during the summer, erecting chain-link fences blocking access crossing highways for anyone not in a car, and closing trailheads in all but the hottest hours of the day. People dying on trails (mostly visitors from out of town) is not uncommon here, but the city does nothing. Bike paths kind of exist, but are generally fenced off so as to not go anywhere, and are otherwise disconnected from one another. It's as if someone is actively trying to prevent people from moving around the city unless they're in a car.
The zoning situation is such that developers continue to build further and further into the desert, which leads the city to continue to pour ever more concrete and asphalt into wider roads that exacerbate the heat island effect. Corner stores are not a thing here. Everything is based around driving from "where people are supposed to live" to "where people are supposed to shop" or "where people are supposed to work." The second that rigid structure breaks down, you find people in crisis. And even when it "works", it creates a patchwork of hellish seas of asphalt checked by vacant lots [1].
Unchecked development is not our problem; shortsighted leadership and policies encouraging or mandating sprawl are.
[0] https://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoe...
[1] https://www.google.com/maps/@33.6402244,-112.0987611,784m/da...
The list is here: https://azmag.gov/Programs/Heat-Relief-Network/Heat-Relief-N... in case that's the easiest format for you while you're dying of heat exhaustion, but there is an apparently incomplete map here: http://hrn.azmag.gov/#/map
The ones that I am familiar with turn out to be places one can find a drinking fountain. All of the ones I know about are outside (unshaded) and many of them are refrigerated, but in my many many miles on foot around the city I have yet to find with the chiller actually running in the summer. As such, the water coming out can be initially hot enough to burn you, if the water comes out at all.
The "cooling centers" appear to be mainly libraries. We routinely take our kids to several libraries that are listed, but I can't recall ever seeing anything set up for helping someone in heat distress. Perhaps they have a hidden area? To me, this again seems like they've simply compiled a list without actually doing anything and declared the problem complete.
Those of us who keep bottled water in the car to give out to people seem to be doing more than the city of Phoenix ever has.
That's nice, but just on my street I've seen neighbors take down 3 trees over the past couple years without replacing them. Trees are expensive to trim and care for properly. I haven't heard of anything addressing that. The poorest neighborhoods have almost zero tree cover. The heat + water are and will become larger issues in Phoenix in the next few years and it feels like leadership isn't doing much. On the water front I've heard really interesting things that Las Vegas is doing that should be replicated here (reducing lawns and water waste - example article: https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/las-vegas-decla...).
The trouble with 'modern' air-conditioning in conventional housing is that it uses energy to produce waste heat which is also absorbed by the environment. Then we're building up the thermal capacity of our surroundings (asphalt, concrete, roads) ... a bad idea. In cities, it 'keeps on giving' all night.
This technology, used in Africa, Asia and India has been around at least 1200 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher
The coolness of the Earth beneath our feet never seems to be advantaged by cities looking for solutions. Cool thermal masses are often found underground. Those of us who live in homes with basements have a thermal resource that's very welcome when upstairs temps rise above 90F/35C.