Household accessibility to heat refuges: Residential air conditioning, public cooled space, and walkability

Abstract

Access to air conditioned space is critical for protecting urban populations from the adverse effects of heat exposure. Yet there remains fairly limited knowledge of the penetration of private (home air conditioning) and distribution of public (cooling centers and commercial space) cooled space across cities. Furthermore, the deployment of government-sponsored cooling centers is likely to be inadequately informed with respect to the location of existing cooling resources (residential air conditioning and air conditioned public space), raising questions of the equitability of access to heat refuges. We explore the distribution of private and public cooling resources and access inequities at the household level in two major US urban areas: Los Angeles County, California and Maricopa County, Arizona (whose county seat is Phoenix). We evaluate the presence of in-home air conditioning and develop a walking-based accessibility measure to air conditioned public space using a combined cumulative opportunities-gravity approach. We find significant variations in the distribution of residential air conditioning across both regions which are largely attributable to building age and inter/intra-regional climate differences. There are also

Interdependent Infrastructure as Linked Social, Ecological, and Technological Systems (SETSs) to Address Lock‐in and Enhance Resilience

“…An important aspect of implementing these strategies is to ensure that they are executed in an integrated manner to avoid conflicts and promote synergies among different approaches. For example, although the City of Phoenix and Maricopa County provide heat refuge locations throughout the region, there does not appear to be an established transportation plan for citizens to get from their house to these refuge centers (Fraser et al, ; Fraser & Chester, ). Similarly, installing trees near a transit stop that already has a substantial shade structure or an evaporative cooling system may provide relatively lower benefits—having cool and comfortable transit stops may not do much good if ridership cannot get from their origin to a transit stop (or from a transit stop to their destination) in an effective and timely manner.…”

Assessing Adaptation Strategies for Extreme Heat: A Public Health Evaluation of Cooling Centers in Maricopa County, Arizona

“…These non-HRN cooling centers are likely meeting some of the county's need for heat relief and serving people with different socioeconomic statuses. Thus, it should be noted that the demographics and social outcomes of visitors to official HRN cooling centers may not be representative of all community members who seek heat relief Fraser et al 2015). …”

Urban Heat Stress Vulnerability in the U.S. Southwest: The Role of Sociotechnical Systems

“…They pointed to vulnerability as a relative concept created by conditions of social justice, equity and opportunity-vulnerable populations tend to be lower income and have fewer opportunities than others (p. 367). Heat vulnerability specifically, has been increasingly taken up by health departments, though in in major counties in the southwest U.S. such as Maricopa County (home of the Phoenix metropolitan area) and Los Angeles County, much of the effort relies on cooling facilities that still remain scarce [59,60]. It is beyond the scope of this paper to conduct a national and international review of heat vulnerability planning and best practices, as these will differ by urban morphology, local government fiscal capacity, state involvement and more.…”