Measure urban heat and vulnerability to understand the heat risk Cities need information on which areas of the city, and which groups of the population, are most at risk. An individual’s heat vulnerability depends on their exposure and sensitivity to extreme heat, and their ability to adapt.

How heat kills....... Sustained exposure to extreme heat can overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate its core temperature. This can lead to heat exhaustion, severe dehydration and heat stroke, a form of hyperthermia. Extreme daily maximum temperatures, high overnight temperatures, high humidity and air pollution, and the prolonged duration of a heatwave all lead to higher heat risk. There is a widespread lack of awareness of the symptoms of heat stress, which can include headaches, vomiting, dizziness and low blood pressure, and which are often mistaken for (and misreported as) other health issues. Extreme heat also negatively impacts health conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, and diabetes. If the body’s core temperature rises too high, the heart is no longer able to maintain adequate circulation, leading to unconsciousness and, ultimately, organ failureWork with expert partners to conduct a heat vulnerability assessment – particularly, city- and/ or national-level government health and meteorological departments, and universities. Health and mortality data from local NGOs can be a useful supplement if official data is lacking. This assessment may form part of a wider climate risk assessment.

Identify the most vulnerable population groups, and the local temperature threshold at which heat becomes a threat. Identify the most vulnerable population groups, and the local temperature threshold at which heat becomes a threat.The populations that are typically most vulnerable are:

• The elderly, young children, and people with underlying medical conditions, as they are more sensitive to extreme heat. This includes pregnant women and women with babies, as breastfeeding is extremely dehydrating. Buenos Aires’ heat risk plan focuses on the elderly.
• Low-income people and those living in poor quality housing, who may have less access to water, green spaces, information, and air-conditioning.
• People who live alone. New York’s Cool Neighbourhoods strategy includes the Be A Buddy NYC programme, which encourages New Yorkers to check in on at-risk neighbours.
• Outdoor workers, who have high exposure to heat and may have jobs requiring physical exertion. Ahmedabad identified outdoor workers as well as slum communities as high-risk groups.
• Marginalised groups including homeless people, migrants, refugees, women and girls, as they may have less access to and awareness of cooling options. The city of Melbourne’s heatwave response strategy includes a focus on the homeless, based on their analysis of heat risk for homeless people.

Use temperature and health data (such as mortality rates and hospital admissions) alongside qualitative research methods to determine which groups in the city are most vulnerable, why, and the temperature thresholds at which heat becomes a threat.....and much much more......read the full report       https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/article/How-to-adapt-your-city-to-extreme-heat?language=en_US 

The secret ingredient in Biden’s climate law? City trees. Planting trees in cities sounds simple. Here's why the Forest Service is spending $1.5 billion on it.Grist Matt Simon  Sep 23, 2024  The Inflation Reduction Act, gives people big rebates and tax credits to switch to a heat pump or electric vehicle. But the law also contains a much-less-talked-about provision that could save lives: $1.5 billion for planting and maintaining trees that would turn down the temperature in many American cities.That money goes to the U.S. Forest Service, which has been doling out the money to hundreds of applicants, including nonprofits and cities themselves. The $1.5 billion is nearly 40 times bigger than what the Forest Service typically budgets for planting and taking care of trees in cities each year, and it’s earmarked for underserved neighborhoods. So far, the agency has awarded $1.25 billion of the funding, and is working to distribute the remaining over the next year. Going from a $36 [million] to $40 million program with urban forestry, to a little over $1.5 billion, was a substantial infusion in dollars to address things like tree equity, tree canopy, and more importantly, providing this type of funding to underserved communities,” said Homer Wilkes, undersecretary for natural resources and environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

What NOT TO DO when trying to spur new housing.  Canada- Ford caused Ontario’s housing shortage. Now he’s making it worse.  National Observer Phil Pothenugust 30th 2024 Despite construction capacity constraints and interest rate hikes, Ontario has still had enough labour, equipment, materials, investment and land within municipal settlement boundaries to keep up with the growing number of new households.  The government has always known that shifting construction to more labour-efficient building formats and construction methods — such as wood frame midrise buildings — and building on infill sites with existing streets and infrastructure would allow those same limited resources to produce a lot more housing.   It is the government’s own NIMBY zoning, outdated construction rules and subsidies for inefficient sprawl development that have prevented both market and non-market builders from making that shift. So why, years after the Premier promised legal reforms that would deliver “more homes faster” and 1.5 million net new homes by 2030, is the housing shortage even worse? Why are housing starts actually down, year over year? It’s because rather than ending restrictions on mid-rise housing and slamming the brakes on sprawl and highway schemes that squander construction, Ontario’s changes to land use planning, environmental and transportation laws and policies have done the opposite.Soon after Premier Doug Ford took office, his government began to dismantle even the modest measures the previous government had taken to promote more efficient housing construction.Among those changes, his government.......Reduced the amount of housing that municipalities are required to zone for inside existing neighborhoods;Nearly halved the number of homes required to be built for each hectare of new development land consumed.......Pressured regional governments to expand the pre-existing glut of farmland and habitat marked for development (there were already 350km2 designated in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area alone) far beyond what consumed by building at reasonable densities;........Committed billions of dollars to subsidize the most inefficient, low-density development by reviving the proposed Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass; and,.........Tried to push sprawl into the Greenbelt itself. Despite calls from housing and environmental experts across the political spectrum — and its own housing task force — to scrap outdated rules such as minimum parking requirements and to permit mid-rise housing on major streets throughout existing residential neighbourhoods, Ford intervened.

He personally blocked efforts to legalize even 4-storey “4-plex” apartment buildings. Ontario’s lingering and worsening housing shortage is exactly what housing and environmental advocates warned would happen if the government didn’t abandon this course. This government knew their sprawl and highway approach would make the housing crisis worse, because the experts told them, and chose to do it anyway. In recent months, as his government’s failure on housing has become more obvious, Ford has tried to pass the buck by blaming everyone from immigrants to the Bank of Canada. What he glosses over is that the housing market could easily have adapted to population and rate changes, but has instead turned the challenge of high interest rates and the opportunity of a growing population into a housing crisis by willfully sabotaging the solutions.So why, years after the Ontario Premier Doug Ford promised legal reforms that would deliver “more homes faster” and 1.5 million net new homes by 2030, is the housing shortage even worse?.....read on   https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/08/30/opinion/ford-caused-ontarios-housing-shortage-now-hes-making-it-worse

How to transform city streets — without losing your parking spot. Washington Post Amanda Shendruk August 13, 2024 at 4:30 a.m. City streets share a common blight.....Uninviting, and even harmful, these are the streets many of us live on.  Endless pavement. Little nature. Tiring traffic.       If you live in a big city, you know the challenges: Pollution, traffic, noise and lack of nature can cause both physical and mental stress. For many, it’s just the reality of urban living. But what if it didn’t have to be?.......What if, instead, a road could be a tree-lined pedestrian walkway with benches? An intersection could be a playground. Safer, healthier, less lonely cities — who wouldn’t want that? There’s an obvious problem: More street space for people means less space for vehicles. And in car-centric America, where freedom often depends on access to a vehicle, many wouldn’t want that. Fortunately, there’s a way to have your park — and parking, too. It’s called a superblock — an urban planning concept that is gaining traction throughout Europe. And it’s something urban planners think could work in the United States. First, find a neighborhood. Here’s a small example- (check out the graphics in the artcle), but the idea could be implemented across larger areas.  On the “inner streets” of the neighborhood, city planners limit vehicle speed, prohibit through-traffic and designate portions of road and intersection as pedestrian-first space. Now that most traffic has been pushed to exterior roads, the next step is to make space for nature and community by adding trees, planters, benches and playgrounds.