How the Built Environment Impacts Public Health planetizen.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from planetizen.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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For this month, The Dirt and author Jared Green share with us a study about urban heat islands, exploring new approaches that have been designed to both reduce urban temperatures and help communities adapt to a hotter world, In three cities: New York City, Copenhagen, and Abu Dhabi.
Global temperatures are rising. 2020 was tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record. Since the 19th century, the planet has warmed by 2° Fahrenheit. Within the built environment, which is too often formed of glass, steel, asphalt, and concrete, dangerous urban heat islands are increasing the risks of heat stress. Underserved communities are particularly at risk, given they often lack trees and green spaces to mitigate the effects.
The Sweetwater Spectrum housing complex, for adults with autism, is designed to maximize natural light, minimize distracting stimuli, and generate as much energy as it uses. (Photo by Marion Brenner, courtesy of Princeton Architectural Press)
An estimated 1.5 to 2 million new homes will be needed by the end of the century, writes Jared Green in the introduction to his new book,
Good Energy. Shouldn’t those homes be healthier, more affordable and more beautiful than what came before? According to Green, they can be at not much additional cost.
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Jennifer Toole, ASLA, is the founder and President of Toole Design and has over 30 years of experience planning and designing multimodal transportation systems. A certified planner with a degree in landscape architecture, Toole has a strong background in urban design. She has been involved in numerous projects of national significance for the Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
Jared Green (JG): In
, edited by Paul Hawken, bike infrastructure is identified as one of the top 80 solutions for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The book finds that in 2014, 5.5 percent of urban trips worldwide were by bicycle. If that number grew to 7.5 percent by 2050, displacing some 2.2 trillion passenger miles completed by vehicles, some 2.2 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions could be avoided, realizing approximately $400 billion savings over the next