Naturally, people who've always lived in hot places for centuries have more well-developed and thought-out ways of dealing with heat.

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.