- Slug: LA Thermal Inequities. 1,265 words.
- 5 photos available (thumbnails, captions below).
By Shi Bradley
Cronkite News
LOS ANGELES – This summer marked the end of the warmest 15 months in a row, with heat waves scorching the Southwest. Urban design, with heat-trapping concrete and asphalt, roasted cities – though not all areas were equally hot.
How hot or cool a neighborhood depends on demographic variables: economically disadvantaged, mainly minority populations live in parts of town that can be several degrees hotter than affluent, predominantly white neighborhoods.
“Imagine two families that live less than a mile apart. One family wakes up, they got beautiful trees everywhere, they live in an air-conditioned home,” said Dr. V. Kelly Turner, associate professor of Urban Planning and Geography at UCLA. “And imagine another family. No trees, no shade, no green space in their neighborhood.”
Scientists call the difference in temperatures thermal inequity, and some began to map urban heat islands, or the hottest neighborhoods in more than a dozen communities worldwide, characterized by the prevalence of heat-absorbing structures and a minimal amount of vegetation and trees.
In the Southwest, how close someone lives to green spaces varies drastically between wealthy and low-income neighborhoods, a study has found: “In arid urban regions water is a costly resource, and the use of water for aesthetic landscaping is far more apparent in wealthy than poor neighborhoods, which also leads to cooler neighborhoods.” Areas with majority Black, Asian, and Latino populations, such as South LA and the San Fernando Valley, have significantly less green space and older infrastructure.
The last 10 years have become the hottest on record in LA, and more people die each year. Black, Native American, Hispanic and Asian populations make up over 50% of hospitalizations and nearly two-thirds of emergency department visits.
“We’ve looked at state records of hospitalizations and emergency room visits on heat days, and we found that ER visits increased by about 1,500 across LA,” said David Eisenman, professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “The demographic groups in Los Angeles experienced the worst impacts were Black, Hispanic and Black elderly.”
Heat does not discriminate and is deadlier than any other natural disaster, but its impact is different, according to Eisenman. On extreme heat days, deaths increase by 8% for white LA residents and by 18% for other groups.
A study examining thermal inequities in 20 Southwestern urban areas found that the lowest-income neighborhoods were, on average, 4 degrees hotter than the wealthiest neighborhoods. In California, this temperature gap nearly doubled, reaching 7 degrees.
Andrea Diaz, a resident of San Fernando Valley, tries to stay indoors to avoid the heat, especially during the summer months, but struggles even in her own home. “My room has AC, but the rest of the house doesn’t. My roommates deal with it, but I can’t, so I turn on a fan immediately.”
The temperature varied drastically on a hot summer day when Diaz drove through LA to finish errands. “If you go downtown or even South Central, it’s not the same kind of weather,” Diaz said.
These disparities stem from historical redlining policies. In 1935, the government-backed Home Owners Loan Corporation created a rating system for private investments in Los Angeles, ranging neighborhoods from A to D, with A being the best neighborhood for investments and color-coded green, and D representing hazardous areas color-coded red – the origin of the term “redlining.”
While the ratings were supposedly based on objective criteria, communities in red areas were predominantly minorities: African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans and sometimes Jewish and Italian immigrant groups.
The practice drew private investments away from the neighborhoods. Once redlining caused a community to decline, officials would label them as “blighted,” allowing freeways, industrial buildings, and other polluting and heat-trapping infrastructure. Redlining policies also prevented people of color from buying homes in certain neighborhoods.
A study found that neighborhoods previously affected by redlining have 37% less tree canopy, leading to warmer temperatures. A research paper released a few days later assessed 108 U.S. urban areas and discovered that 94% of redlined neighborhoods suffer from elevated temperatures compared to the rest of the city.
South Central LA, known for its predominantly Black population and cultural influences, has suffered the effects of historical redlining in an area that also includes Watts, Crenshaw, Inglewood and Compton. Black residents moved here from the South and other places during the Great Migration in the 1950s, seeking new work opportunities in industrial fields.
“South Central is heavily built up with concrete, asphalt and (is surrounded by) industrial areas,” said Kevin Patel, founder of youth climate advocacy group OneUpAction.“Removing access to green spaces, you leave this community burdened with a lot of injustices. And BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) are the ones that are going to be the most affected.”
The LA County Chief Sustainability Office has plans to cool the neighborhoods by improving urban design and creating more access to heat-protective resources.
“We need to be making investments,” said Ali Frazzini, policy director at LA County Chief Sustainability Office. “Acquiring land to create a new park, (not only) spending the initial funds to plant trees, but actively maintaining these things as well.”
Monica Rodriguez is LA City Council member for District 7, which falls in San Fernando Valley, a majority Hispanic, urban neighborhood that happens to be one of the hottest in LA County. She grew up in the area and has seen how past decisions led to today’s major thermal issues.
“Sidewalk construction waivers, no tree canopy and few parks, to being skipped over for public transit infrastructure investment. My work today is twice as hard to make up for the lost time,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez has introduced cool pavement installations in Pacoima and Sylmar neighborhoods, two of the oldest and hottest neighborhoods in San Fernando Valley, composed of working-class, primarily Hispanic residents, a good amount of which live in public housing.
This month, California voters approved a $10 billion bond to bolster the state’s fight against climate change. Over $1 billion dollars will go toward creating green spaces and parks, planting trees and creating other projects to cool down neighborhoods and reduce air pollution. At least 40% of the bond money must be spent in disadvantaged communities.
A significant factor in mitigating the effects of heat waves in the hottest areas of L.A. is the ability to foresee the upcoming extreme heat days. Kristen Guirguis, a project scientist at UC San Diego, works on forecast models to predict heat waves weeks in advance. The researcher studies climate change projections to understand how future heat waves will affect different communities: “We’re looking at projections from climate models to see how heat waves are likely to change in the future, and then that would inform the kind of preparations that communities need to make to adapt to those changes,” Guirguis said.
UCLA’s Center for Healthy Climate Solutions’ Heat Maps predicts which communities are most at risk of harm during extreme heat days. Government agencies in California use these for heat planning and prioritizing the placement of resources for neighborhoods.
Patel, who resides in South LA, has noticed slow improvements in green spaces in his neighborhood: “My block never had any trees, and then just recently, I saw people installing trees. Outside of my family business we have a tree for the first time ever, and it’s one that just was planted.”
The changes to his neighborhood leave Patel feeling hopeful about the possibility of decreasing inequalities and heat protection in the future. “The resiliency that we have in our community when going through so many injustices, we’ve been able to come together as a community and demand better,” Patel said.
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