Urban planning really is something incredibly important that I think should be much more accessible to citizens - the way the US plans its cities is so un enjoyably for people living in them who can’t walk anywhere or do anything without a car… asphalt and concrete really need to be replaced by something else… Thanks for your video ! Such an important topic
the city can benefit from both increase in economic activity and reduce the urban heat effect in 1 go just by transitioning from a car centric to a pedestrian centric urban design.
I used to live in Phoenix. The sprawl is unreal, and few buildings are over a storey. As a student I didn’t have a car and spent a few years using the bus system. Typically buses would run half hourly or hourly. God help you if you miss a transfer. Often I would walk someplace slowly, and if you are walking it’s important to wear jeans, not shorts or dresses as the heat coming up from the asphalt is intense (and a lot of places don’t have sidewalks so you’re walking on asphalt or scrub). It’s counter-intuitive, but the cloth protects you from the heat (it’s the same reason long garments are traditionally worn in the Arabian Peninsula). I once waited for a bus for 2 hours that never showed up. I was about a mile from home so I thought I’d just walk it. It was one of the hottest days of the year and I’d already been waiting in the heat (no bus shelter) for a long time. By the time I got home I had heat stress. I went into the shower fully clothed to cool down, then went to bed. I felt sooo awful. Later when I had a car I couldn’t afford to fix the air con. If I was moving the breeze made it bearable. If I was sitting in traffic I was hating life. I think the main reason people move to Phoenix is because it’s perpetually sunny, but I don’t think it’s worth it.
Sounds like a nightmare. Been to Phoenix a handful of time but never willingly. It's an ugly city, nothing to do, just sprawled out houses horizon to horizon. Remember, cheap living doesn't mean good living.
@@danieldaniels7571 that's the point. If someone who cannot afford or drive a car, like seniors and students, cannot do anything without needing a car, your transportation system needs a total overhaul. Time to expand the light rail again, I guess.
If you don’t like Phoenix please don’t come. The locals love it and the none locals hate it and that’s why locals love it. People that live in places where people don’t want to live properly would like to be left alone,
@@adamhackett7173 My mom loved it when she lived in Phoenix in 1999. It was a beautiful city, she said. We migrated from India and temperatures like these are common in India in summer. It's a different experience living in a warmer climate.
I am an AZ native. I grew up in what used to be a small farming community about 35 miles southeast of Phoenix, called Queen Creek, back in the 1960s and 1970s. We never had air conditioning, at home or at school. We depended on swamp coolers. I worked in the fields as a kid during the summer. Never thought much about it. Now that whole area that used to be fields and desert is a nightmare of cookie cutter stucco houses in subdivisions with HOAs, artificial lakes and goof courses, streets, freeways, and shopping malls. Central AZ has been almost completely destroyed over the past 50 years. Instead of building more they need to start tearing things down. The Phoenix area is simply NOT the place for a large city.
Geralds, how about taking a tour of 20 cities around the world by doing you tube virtual walks at the street level You would be SHOCKED how beautiful infrastructure is outside of the country.
@@dexdrurglum Yes it's a nightmare now, but it was a great place to live 50 years ago. I grew up there, went to the Queen Creek school grades 1-8, finished 8th grade in 1973. Only one building is left of the original school and it's now a museum. I have some friends who live just off Sossaman Road, about half a mile south of Ocotillo in the Ranchos Jardines area. They have horses. Those houses were all built in the '70s. I worked for both James Sossaman and Robert Ellsworth when I was a kid on weekends and during the summer. The Hunt Highway was all dirt and nothing out there but desert and farmland.
Cities across the medditerranean have for millenia been built as to provide shade through their architecture. While not exactly cold, it's still tolerable to walk around in the old town of Barcelona in 40+ weather. As with most problems in urban planning we solved this ages ago, but polticians and leaders just aren't willing to listen.
felix im fed up with the united states! high crime, high health care cost, CRAP load of car congestion, high rents, nasty American personalities, Obesity that is ridiculous, no parks, no walking paths. The buss system sucks. Does Barcelona have these problems? There is no culture "Vancouver had immigrant culture centers".
Well, Felix, brother, while much of "the american west" does have a "Mediterranean" climate, the lessons learned from such don't cut much mustard as the times change as you will see.
I used to be a delivery driver. Believe it or not, the older the area was, the better designed and laid out it was. You would think it would be the opposite, but nope.
>build a city in the middle of a desert >build highways and parking lots everywhere >build cookie cutter car dependent homes >only source of vegetation are golf parks and non-native trees wow, why is phoenix so hot guys???
No one asks why it's so hot here... We live in a desert were all well aware lmfao. Even the surrounding rural areas reach similar temperatures. The city development obviously doesn't help it but it's not at all deserving of the blame. It's just the geography. Also most natives here love the heat. For a lot of people especially because of air conditioning the heat isn't neccassarily a problem.
Also this video doesn't neccassarily show it but Phoenix and ESPECIALLY its suburbs like Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa are actually surprisingly COVERED in tons of trees despite us being a desert. If you ever look out from a sky scraper, hiking trail, or a plane you'd be surprised of how green our city actually is. However, some low income parts by downtown Phoenix are AWFUL at this admittedly.
A new trend I have been seeing is dumb crap like matte black metal roof installed in already hot places. Maybe it looks cool but it adds to you and your neighbors heat bills, not to mention nobody will ever want to work on that.
Living in Bavaria I measured roofs of some parking cars with an IR- Thermometer during the hottest days. Black cars often were ~85°C🌡🎈, bright car beside it ~60° Celsius.
Speaking from experience, the big problem about that road paint is that if youre driving west during sunset, it's almost impossible to see what's in front of you as the light reflects directly into your eyes. Big safety concern.
The solution to that is sun glasses, as a michigander sunglasses are a must driving in the winter on sunny days. And yes pavement makes it much hotter, I live north of a big city, halfway between the temp changes and most days you can feel a difference, I would never live down there again just on that and I'm a cold person who likes heat but it makes it unbearable, had to go to a graduation party down there this summer and was so happy to get back to my patch of woods.
@@Ozhull I’m talking about driving west during sunset…while the lightly colored pavement is reflective. It’s true my sunglasses aren’t the greatest, I don’t think I’m the only one wearing those $10.00 sunglasses from Ross though. It’s just my personal experience. With my schedule I go east during sunrise and going west during sunset. It’s not fun.
Nice video :) They paint over roads with gray paint, maybe they should just limit the width of streets. Not sure why they need 3m roads for every single family home..
I’ve lived in the Phoenix metropolitan area since 1962. The 1.7 million population figure is only for the city of Phoenix. With the suburbs the total is closer to 5 million. This growth is unsustainable. We are in a severe drought and looking at losing 20% of our water allotment of Colorado River water. We need more efficient buildings, more renewable energy, more open spaces, more native trees and many other methods to mitigate the heat island effect. This asphalt coating is just one tool that the metro area needs to implement.
It's just gonna keep getting hotter friend. Gone are the days of comfy, peaceful, temperate global temperatures. We're moving towards a new norm. And air conditioning is great until you have an energy crisis.
AND they are building a GIGANTIC water park south of Phoenix. AND they are giving big tax incentives to bring in HUGE data centers that use MASSIVE amounts of water (the cooling towers) and electricity. Glad I retired when I did and moved to BFE Montana.
Grew up in Arizona and currently living in Phoenix. Have also lived in Los Angeles and Chicago for many years. Phoenix kind of sucks tbh, but efforts like this give me hope! The city is definitely responding to these problems and finally making efforts to cool off, densify, and become more accessible for cyclists and pedestrians. Comments like "this city should never have existed" are pretty ignorant and based on a lot of assumptions. Humans have been living in desert climates around the globe for thousands of years. It's not necessarily outlandish to build a city in the desert, but it does require proper urban planning that is responsive to the city's specific needs.
@Moon Shine Not really sure what's so great about it though. I don't doubt that those other red cities suck, just not sure why so many people think Phoenix doesn't. The city itself sucks and has no real life. Tempe has a decent nightlife but it really doesn't compare to any city known for it's nightlife. Tons of poverty and crime. I heard gunshots almost weekly, my apartment complex had break-ins all the time, homeless people would go through the trash and just leave it everywhere, needles all over the place. Every park covered in needles unless you went waaaay out of the city itself. The suburbs there are un-livable in my opinion. Don't care how cheap it is, you'd have to pay me to live in one of them. Traffic was horrible. The people were rude. Not a great selection of restaurants. Downtown is incredibly disappointing for a city of that size. Only a tiny part of the year brings comfortable weather. Seeing 100 degrees at 1 in the morning in summer was depressing. Yet, some people like it. People like Rob Halford confuse me, as he's visited toooons of cities in his life and still picks that area. I am perplexed.
@@PanthraxIV It's nice weather December to February, in the middle and upper class neighborhoods there is no crime and police respond, also driving is nice cuz there are no traffic cops so you can drive as fast as you want and you get good practice dancing with other drivers.
@@brokentombot A few months of "nice" weather isn't really worth it to me lol. >in the middle and upper class neighborhoods there is no crime and police respond with exception to gated communities, you are entirely wrong. Crime is everywhere in Phoenix no matter how hard they try and keep it west of the 17 freeway. >also driving is nice cuz there are no traffic cops so you can drive as fast as you want and you get good practice dancing with other drivers. That seems to be common in many major cities. Phoenix PD is known to be shit in general. Don't get me started on the sheriffs department there.
@@ee-ef8qr I grew up in Tucson. It definitely has the same problem. Too much sprawl. But at least it was a naturally formed town built around a real water source.
As somebody who lives in Phoenix I just want to say there is not a 100% coverage rate for people with A/C. Many of the lower income housing units only have evaporative cooling aka "swamp coolers" which are not effective once the humidity goes above a certain percent, and we are not immune to power outages either in the summer thanks to dust storms and monsoons. Public buildings, schools, workplaces, yes I would say those places are well above 90% in terms of "they have A/C", possibly approaching 100% for A/C coverage like the video randomly threw out, but when the pandemic forced people to stay home and they couldn't go use public facilities (libraries, swimming pools, etc.) I feel like that's the most likely reason for the increased heat deaths in 2020.
Swamp coolers are still perfectly adequate if you've lived here long enough, that's all we had in our single wide and it still works just fine, it is rarely humid enough for it not to work.
Back in 2004, I went to the TRB (Transportation Research Board) conference where I sat in a session where they presented best construction practices in Germany for roads. It was a eureka moment for me when I saw that it was routine for German construction crews to add crushed light stones to make the roads Grey instead of fresh black asphalt to lower the heat island effect. I can’t believe in all this time this practice has not been adopted in the states.
The comments on greening were depressing. After aiming for 25 canopy cover it was stated they are behind schedule, trees can suffer storm damage, some are hit by vehicles and there is some vandalism, meaning that the target was going to be revised (presumably down). Yes, trees suffer storm damage, but they also act to slow wind speed, as a biologist put it, they can be difference between your roof being blown off. Trees also catch particles of pollution and store carbon in the soil while they are alive: the size of the canopy Is generally a good guide to the amount. Those wide streets, likely contributing to higher speeds and collisions with stationary objects like tree, contribute to the heating effect. But there is the potential to make them more narrow and slowed allowing for separated and shaded foot and bike paths and rain gardens, to ensure that such rain as does fall has the best opportunity to drain into the soil. This keep moisture in it for longer allowing for healthier soil, plants and shade. So that for those parts of the year when the weather is pleasant, active transport can become a more attractive option and street plantings do a lot more for cooling, shade, water retention and habitat. Not to mention the presence of natural greenery has a positive impact on human health. Clearly water is an issue, so plant choices would need to be indigenous or adapted to dessert conditions. But the impression, perhaps unfairly, from this short video, was of aiming low in regards to streetscape cooling and greening rather than trying to trial and adapt best practice. It does make sense to go for easier achievements in tree planting where space is currently available, but simultaneously to be trialing best practice green and active travel street design.
Agreed. They need to promote certain tree species that have big root systems and won't be damaged easily in storms. Even if they take decades to grow. Big trees can tap into water deep underground, once they are established.
@@VanillaMacaron551 Many desert plants don't put their roots straight down, they can be rather shallow but wide to catch as much rainfall as possible when our infrequent rains finally come. Planting a native desert plant and affixing a drip irrigation system on the trunk makes for a poorly rooted plant. That is one reason they tip over in storms so much.
Been in Arizona my whole life. North Phoenix is beautiful. It’s an amazing state. It goes from low desert to high forest. Lakes and rivers to mountain plateaus. The inner city does leave some to be desired but I love Phoenix, it’s home.
Biome appropriate trees, shrubs vines, etc and rainwater harvesting to soil, and reusing grey water would go a much longer way to future-proofing Phoenix... Roof gardens and painting roofs and west facing walls white would help, too.
I spent most of my life in the Valley. The environment has changed drastically. Inflation, traffic congestion, the rise in temperature, the attitude of people, both politically and pissoffedness is the reason I left the Valley for good and will never go back.
I kid you not, it gets hot enough here to lower their efficiency, they would need their own cooling system to function at 100%, lmao. And then you get to pay the power company AND whomever you bought the solar panels from. Heaven help you if one of our monsoons contain hail.
@@DiogenesOfCa they're pretty common here in Texas, and they actually extract and refine fossil fuels here. There's a federal incentive for solar panels nationwide. But it's true, they aren't as efficient when they get hot. 😆
Where are we going to park our big American cars if we remove those parking lots? Why I live in Phoenix: because its not California, you don't have to shovel the heat in the summer, we have air conditioning, no huricanes, no floods, no mud slides, no tornados. Basically no natural disasters. If your city is not growing then it is dying. We have plenty of water by the way.
@@IceCreamManDLR I've been here over 50 years and love it. The only thing I don't love is too many people moving here, so somone saying they wouldn't even consider it because of the heat is music to my ears.
grew up in Phoenix in the 1960s and visited in January the first time in 40 years. This video completely misses the overall pattern of urban development which has vast rivers of traffic flowing on their wide, highly developed freeway system. It's important to go and ride in cars 20, 30 hours like I did in a 4 day period with family member who seems to think this is a normal way to live. Weird there's no semi's just huge rivers of cars. Everything seems to be 20 miles away and they think this is normal.
One thing present in Los Angeles and San Diego mission revival architecture is liberal use of awnings that cover walkways to provide 24/7 shade. This along with natural cooling techniques as seen in parts of the south that have old shotgun houses where the air circulates out of the home should be adopted more widely throughout the sunbelt in order for people have low cost options for staying cool
As an American I completely agree we need to rethink how urban planning impacts the way a city develops, especially in extreme regions. Utilizing design to reduce the impact of climate change is a must. Retrofitting alone won't get us there. But unfortunately it's not just sitting down and declaring a top-down policy over 1mil+ people. Hundreds, if not thousands, of considerations have to be assessed. It's easy to say "yeah just rip up all the asphalt, American cities are horribly designed anyway." This fails to take into account that American cities are designed to be pragmatic first, enjoyable second. When you have an urban population growing by literally millions year over year, and sometimes insurmountable local interests and politics at play, it's a slow process to turn the ship.
Urban sprawl isn't pragmatic. Zoning laws should be easied, so low rise housing, row houses and small shops are allowed in neighborhoods. Now only single family and high rise are allowed, causing urban sprawl.
@@edopronk1303 I think you are missing about 70 years of history there. Urban sprawl was the result of a pragmatic approach to resolving the housing crisis after WWII. The Montgomery GI bill gave (most) Americans the means to purchase a home, and the rollout of suburbs was the infrastructure to match. Do what you can with what you have, the very concept of pragmatism. The problem that we now face, one that we recognize now with the benefit of 70+ years of hindsight, is that such a policy played forward over successive generations is wildly inefficient. In several cases it is also ineffective in meeting what we now recognize to be additional needs from our built environment. It doesn't need the needs of walkability, alternative transport, food distribution, population increase, etc. At least not efficiently and effectively. So yes, considering everything that we need to look for when considering a new development in the modern day, urban sprawl is no longer the most effective option in meeting the need. But it is not a fair argument to say that when the policy was first developed it was not pragmatic.
@@SteezyRider it was never a good idea to demolish countless neighborhoods all over the country and displace so many people just to build massive highways through downtowns. They ripped out tram tracks and shut down transit in so many cities for this to work... Literally killing so many cool historical cities that could have been so much more, e.g. Hartford. Even in Australia where things are better, people realize that suburban sprawl was a huge mistake from the start.
Do you want to go to the Gobi desert in the winter or Antarctica as the definition for a desert doesn't necessarily mean hot it just means that there is not much form of life
@@heidirabenau511You're correct, but there's a little more to it. A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life - Wikipedia
Phoenix is a desert. Phoenix can only plant desert trees or trees native to the snoring desert. The question is what controls the heat in the desert and what keeps people and animals cool in the desert. Maybe Phoenix could have public waterfoutians
"the snoring desert" Alright ya got me, I laughed at that, lmao. Anyways, I'd love to see where all that water for the fountains is coming from. Heat island effects the desert out here because rocks also retain heat but what gets me the most is that it DOES considerably cool at night. Actually, as soon as the sun goes down it instantly feels nicer. 95 degrees under the AZ sun and 105 degrees under the moon are worlds apart heat wise. It may get to 119 in the day but it will cool almost 30 or more degrees at night. A 115 day followed by 90 at night is cool, in ye olden days we'd just sleep outside in an Arizona room. it has worked for centuries out here.
Phoenix Bird here that's 27 years of age and having roots of birth here, I'm shocked I haven't seen this in my recommendations almost 2 weeks ago! I can say by experience that we get BRUTALLY HOT! 🔥 Hot enough that you can even cook a raw egg on the asphalt streets out here which I haven't done an environmental experiment myself but really adore how hot it gets here as my body has been adapted to the hot subtropical desert climate ever since! From what I've studied in history class throughout middle school, we started growing rapid in population during the 1960s when AC began being built and invented throughout the valley for many people to have jobs and moving to the metro region due to our 300+ sunny days annually and having a handful of outdoor activities for active living than most U.S. cities. We still do have a long way when it comes to heat strokes / hyperthermia as Phoenixians as what most people don't know that if you don't keep yourself hydrated and staying cool, you can be in great danger which is the main issue we have here. I know by experience as I saved a few men that almost died due to heat stroke as I always carry bottles of water with me whatever I walk to the grocery store to bringing a towel with me to cool my back as I tend to sweat easily due to social anxiety. We may be one of the most BEAUTIFUL cities on earth due to our mountainous landscape & colorful sunsets that represents our state & city flag but I want to point out 3 reasons why people shouldn't move here. 1.🌞 We're not that safe when it comes to walking distance if you're a pedestrian as our sidewalk paths are quite narrow that you have a higher risk of being hit by vehicles that drive by during the day. 2.🌵 Transportation is a MAJOR issue around the valley if you don't drive a car like I do as you would have to walk quite a ways to get around when it comes to visiting parks or restaurants throughout the region. 3.🌴 We're flooded with So-Cals (people from California) that our traffic becomes quite populated throughout the day (mainly the weekends) and how we can be quite crowded. No offense to Californians even though I ADORE people from L.A. &/or San Diego that wants to live in our Grand Canyon State as I know the housing income is a major problem in California. We have a lot of work to do to make the city a safer place to live when it comes to planting trees to have our citizens stay cool and being in more peaceful environments so that we wouldn't be seen as a concrete jungle. Not sure if this helps for any state transplants that are foreigners to Arizona but that I could share as I'm proud of my city on how far it has been built and hoping we have a more developed future ahead of us as technology is slowly advancing for us in the Valley of the Sun! 🌞
An alu-foil emergency blanket could be a lifesaver, too.⛱🥵🔫 Give 💦in small gulps and very slow⏳ to avoid 🧟 🤮 A sunstroke 🌞🎇feels like a food poisoning🤢🤪🤒 for some days. 😴🛏💤🚽
There are a lot of new things that dont make sense. Like black aspalt, and black roofs. One of the reason we use a steep black roof in utah is so the snow melts and slides off and its stronger structurally to hold the weight of snow. But when was the last time phonix received snow fall? Perhaps a tile roof, something seen more often in say like california would make more sense. A red roof reflects more light then a black roof would. The only down side i can see is that the tile roof absorbs more heat then the typical black sheets would.
i think people use asphalt-shingle roofs because it is the cheapest among the commonly available options in the US. maybe they could spend an extra $50-$100 and paint it white
In my part of Montana, we use tin roofs. 😊 Wildfires produce a lot of flammable particulates. We are currently having the warmest Autumn I've experienced in the last 20 years, too. But, no rain. We really need some precipitation.
So it is like this, ceramic roof tiles are going to last the life of the house but are more expensive. They get hot but they are durable. The dark asphalt thin tiles are much cheaper and on older houses. They are terrible, not as durable but since they are cheap they got used. A person that owns a house or trailer like that won't exactly have the funds to get a whole roof redone, they just have to deal with it and repair it if they can even do that. Corrugated metal roofs would be the best way to make our houses into solar ovens.
It is definitely hot here in the summer, but autumn, winter, and spring are wonderful when the high temperatures range from the 60’s to the upper 80’s and generally without humidity. It is definitely a car dependent city though and aircon is a necessity at certain times of the year. It is funny though because I think most people think of aircon as a luxury and so there is judgment about it being a need in Phoenix, which leads to the ugh it’s so stupid to have a city in the desert type of thinking. But think of winter in most of the rest of the country…are furnaces and radiators luxury? Why is there no judgment about people living in climates that are bitterly cold three months out of the year requiring fossil fuels to heat up their homes??
Alot of people just use tradtional methods to keep warm, wear thermals and layers inside, have smaller better insulated houses, and burn wood in a log fire if they have too. If you look at the traditional designs of houses and housing in the hot regions of the world, they have similar tradtional innovations, for example windcatchers, subterrainian housing, and narrows easily covered streets. Phoneix, being car based, and covered in roads, with far apart wide houses, ignores all of this long built up knowledge. The whole place needs zoning changes, and expansion to be done differently and sustainbly.
@@mysteryhombre81 I’ve lived in cold places like Chicago, Boston, Ohio. Most people are not burning logs in a fire to stay warm. They are burning fossil fuels to heat their homes. Sure, people wear thermals and layers, but people here when at home dress in a light manner to not be hot (like t-shorts and shirts) so that they save on their aircon bills. There was also a study out of Michigan that compared climate control energy demand. It found that climate control in Minneapolis is about 3.5 times as energy demanding as in Miami. This finding suggests that, in the US, living in cold climates is more energy demanding than living in hot climates…
@@mysteryhombre81 I agree in zoning, but coming from Minnesota we need both heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. There is no way to keep warm enough when it’s below zero for a month or more straight, before wind chills.
I live in a city that has hot summers and I agree - we turn on the aircon as a comfort, health and safety measure, just as people in cold climates see it as normal to have heating. Forget the guilt - aircon is a life-saver. It also pairs beautifully with solar power - ie it's hot when the sun's shining - meaning if you have solar PV panels on your roof, running aircon in the daytime is pretty much free. Silver (galvanised) tin rooves are most common here in Brisbane, Australia, as they reflect the heat. I was shocked to see all those dark-coloured rooves in Phoenix.
Windows that are able to stop jeat but allow light can help in reducing the requirement of air-conditioning. Another solution can be to plant trees on road dividers. This allows for tree plantation without land use (you anyway need to have road dividers)
People also have to realize that to people who actually live here we don’t consider the weather to be hot unless it’s a over 105. If it’s 90 or below we wear pants
I bet most commenters here have never even flew over AZ let alone visited. They don't know that a 100 degree day is still nice weather. They don't know that 70 degrees is considered cold to us.
As someone who has lived in Phoenix my whole life, this is some HUGE cap. All summer long you hear nothing but complaints about our heat. Id be fucking rich if i had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “why do i live in the desert” over summer. Our outdoor recreational parks become barren wastelands in the summer daytime. I grew up skating in Phoenix and have regularly skated empty parks every single summer because hardly anyone wants to go outside unless they have to in the heat. Im not saying Phoenix is a bad place to live ive come to love it here. And its true that many people in Phoenix do have much more heat tolerance than people elsewhere. but acting like Arizonans are out frolicking around in any weather under 105 is a ridiculous exaggeration.
@@WillVroo ngl 105 and under is cooler than if it were above. he’s pretty much talking about anybody who’s lived here 10+ years. kind of a twist of his words to say anything about “frolicking” outside in weather under 105 since he didn’t say anything of the sort
@@ElfenLiedAgain he said it's not even hot until 105. That's entirely untrue and not how Arizonans act in my experience at all. They hardly even go to parks, and they complain like hell on a 100 degree day from what I've seen.
No alcohol, no smoke, no sugar, no carbs, no junk food and always compensate the sweating with water + right amount of electrolytes. It is costless to give it a try. I envy you guys in Phoenix cheers
1:23 Population growth isn't what increases the Heat Island Effect. It's the suburban development pattern. Car infrastructure like wide roads and parking lots cause the Heat Island Effect. That's not the same as population growth. The city could grow its population and DECREASE its land footprint at the same time by curbing suburban expansion. Bike paths, mass transit, urban living, and trees will cool the city. Population growth did not do this. Doubling down on our defunct 1950s development pattern did this. Tomorrow's Build, do better and stop conflating the two. Phoenix's population growth didn't have to result in suburban sprawl and you know it.
Also you do not need to overbuild roads like they do in the Southwest. Those residential roads could be almost half as wide and still have the same utility.
What if gardens or tall grass were planted on top of parking garages? I take due to so ever-increasing floodings everywhere, it might not be the best option to build underground parking spaces, instead, planting gardens on top of them could decrease the amount of heat absorbed since north America's car-dependent neighbourhoods keep increasing and so does the need for parking spaces.
@@iminyourwalls8309 We already use ground water here, this would just deplete it faster. Most of our water table (in the south eastern portion of Maricopa County) is almost 200ft underground. Another thing OP is ignorant of is just how hard our ground is, it is as strong as concrete in places. There is a reason almost nothing is underground unless it needs to be.
I know this might sound entitled and very American of me, and I know almost the entire world uses Celsius and the Metric System (of which, I’m not 100% familiar with yet), but when you’re talking about American cities/American problems thats going to attract American audiences, Its super annoying to have the information presented with Celsius/Metric measurements. Of course, you can still include them but for the sake of the American audience like myself, a quick translation would be appreciated. I literally can’t translate 43 degrees C in my head. I can picture 100 degrees F and basic measurements like 0 degrees C and -40 degrees C but I can’t picture anything other than that and since this concern is literally about my country, I’d rather know yk. Same thing with meters, some channels would say stuff about American skyscrapers with meter measurements and I literally cannot picture it at all
I lived in Phoenix for a while and during the summer months I just stayed in doors. Even at night it’s sooo hot. But the winter months were amazing. But yes some neighborhoods were cooler than others because of trees and what not. Its just so big and keeps growing. Cost of living is increasing and rent and home prices too. Soo more people are becoming homeless so I think the number of heat related deaths will continue to rise
There have also been a remarkably high number of people who died in their home when their A/C went out. Mostly elderly folks and very young children in those instances, but that's still ridiculous.
I have lived in Phoenix for 30 years, and yes summers can be hot but from about mid-October until the end of May it is one of the best places to live. This past summer was wet which resulted in one of our mildest in a long time.
Summer temperatures there could continue to rise into the 130 degrees F range and a large portion of people will say they're not any hotter than they've always been, and just spend more time indoors with their A/C on full blast. More likely the city may just slowly empty out and shrink as Detroit or Pittsburgh did in the last century.
@@danieldaniels7571 Because of tech companies migrating there but overtime, once those businesses opted for greater; cheaper pastures, Phoenix wouldn't have anything to support it's economy. Literally, there is nothing else supporting PHX's growth
I moved to Phoenix in 1990 and went to refrigeration school (silly me). We had our first 122 degree day. My 25 or so year old A/C worked until I got the bills. Since I was in the A/C business, I put on the highest efficiency unit I could get and that helped greatly plus over insulated everything I could. The average roof temperature (where the majority of the units were located) went well north of 140. Inside the attic, I measured 156 degrees. Lighter roofs DID make a difference. After 12 or more hours in hot attics and hot roofs when I would get home I would leave a trail of clothes from the front door to the pool. I would have my wife bring me a gallon of ice tea and told her not to bother me for an hour or so so I could get my internal temp down. I did that shitty thankless job for 25 years until I came off a roof. And it is getting worse down there between the heat and the crime and drugs and the traffic, I had enough and retired and moved away. It used to be if you went west on Olive Ave towards the Air Force base you went past a few fields that were growing whatever and the temp dropped by 20 degrees and it was such a pleasant surprise, but when I left in 2005, all that farm land had been converted into houses. And more houses. And yet MORE houses.
It just keeps spreading and growing. They just passed a permit to a new city by Apache Junction that’s going to be 1 million people minimum in the next 10 years. One thing phoenix has is jobs which is nice
I have no clue how people live there, I visited last year and couldn’t wait to leave and don’t ever plan on going back. It was 103 & 105 the days we were there!
The summers can be unbearable to visitors, but for half of the year we enjoy 70-80° weather that's why we get so much tourism from Canada and other northern states during the winter, fall, and some in spring.
@@johnperic6860 nice. As long as you stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, and a hat which shades your face it's all good. The important thing to remember is when you're a little less than half out of water it's time to turn around a head back.
What's interesting is not that Phoenix is hot, it that so many people live there. What would you move to a city where you need an oven mitt to open your car door?
because I haven't seen a single snowflake in 10 years, growing up in Wisconsin my mom would wake me up at 5 AM to shovel the snow so she could go to work and she would call me at 3 PM to shovel the snow so she could come home from work.
Opening the car door isn’t the problem, it’s touching the steering wheel when you get in the car that nearly burns your hands. If you don’t use a reflector for your windshield, getting into your car in the middle of summer is hell
Hi there! I am doing a research project for my "Designing Materials for Sustainability" class, and I was wondering if it was possible to share your sources about the effects of these changes of materials (using materials with a smaller thermal strain coefficient) effect Pheonix's climate. That would be greatly appreciated!
These are all bandaid solutions. Phoenix desperately needs to change to rail based infrastructure. Subways/trains don't contribute much to the heat island effect, certainly not as much as roads. The roads themselves need to be narrowed and ideally lined with trees, or possibly trees down the center.
I have a second home In Lake Havasu City, which is almost always hotter than Phoenix. I find the heat wonderful and invigorating. And, like someone else previously mentioned, it's not really considered hot over there unless the temperature rises above 105. 115 is actually a normal summer day. You must be careful, however. The heat most certainly can kill you, although I don't think it is nearly as dangerous or lethal as the freezing cold temperatures of some other states. I did have a neighbor who fell asleep sunbathing in her backyard during a 125 degree day, and it killed her.
I grew up in Michigan, livded in Phoenix for a number of years, and am now back in Michigan. I'd argue the heat is far more dangerous than the cold. If power were to go out in Phoenix for a week straight in July you'd have a ton of fatalities because you cant escape the heat or produce cooling. In colder climates you just throw some wood in the fireplace and huddle around it with some blankets. You can make heat for free. You cant cool without electricity.
Don't expect non-Arizonans to know stuff like that. I'm sure most heat related deaths are from people out of state visiting or just moved here. Anyone who has lived here a while knows to respect the sun and the heat. Or they just have a second residence in the High Country if they have money.
I visit Phoenix every other year for a week or so and couldn't imagine living there long term, considering I'm from Chicago and don't like hot weather like my significant other..
Med cities know how to mitigate against this through density, compactness and tight streets next to communal parks/land but this goes against American dreams of expansive land ownership and staking the territory of the individual. Realistically they really need to begin the infill process and get rid of most of their cars to allow for shaded streets, but it would likely take a century to reverse their existing bad-planning. We don't have a century.
Had the same thought as well. A lot of timeless lessons to be learned from how construction is done for centuries in arid and hot environments like in the Mediterranean and middle east. Sadly, even people there are increasingly overlooking those lessons. Developers and city planners need to really take heart that the desert is no place for mcmansions, green lawns and twelve lane city roads.
In my junior year of high school, I went on a field trip to Phoenix for a fbla(future business leaders of america) conference. At the convention center I joined a class that was organized by the Phoenix metro department of transportation, and they asked us all what we thought should be improved. Half of the class said four way stops and the other brought up public transportation. The organizers were very determined to expand rail and bus lines, hopefully it'll start to fruition.
@@danieldaniels7571 Almost nothing in America has good planning. It might be good relative to other American planning but with that heat loading and sprawl you simply can't call it well-planned. Phoenix has 3000 people per mile, most European cities which make good use of space have somewhere in the region of 10000 plus at least
Yea LA has tried Cool Seal, but it created other problems from the reflection. Solve 1 problem, create another. The reflection made day time temperatures over that area around 10 degrees or more hotter when it was in the low 90s. This made waiting for buses at stop dangerous, if used on freeways, the neighborhood around them worse, and a sense of fall security. Though i probably solves more than it causes with the protection of the road materials and lower consumption of energy at night (though it's the daytime/afternoons when our grid it taxed to its' limits. The issue become, if droughts are worse natural cover becomes impossible to make/maintain, so if you want to reflect the heat, stay inside, then we have to spend millions if not billions of full shelters for things like bus-stop, hydration centers to a higher standard and more frequent at outdoor parks, the big homeless issues that could compound this, and if we are just meant to stay inside all summer, then why live in those areas at all, when there is already energy and water shortage issues?
Could you imagine what a powerhouse Arizona would be if we could export renewable energy. Maybe Elon Musk could hook us up with batteries, or some other battery producer. Also chip manufacturers are expanding their manufacturing in the state which is awesome.
Arizona is known for its nuclear , the cleanest most powerful energy there is and the future governor Kari Lake wants to build more nuclear and be an exporter to people like California who have blackouts because they think they can run a state off windmills and solar panels because a bunch of elites and billionaires said solar and wind is “the hip new thing”
@@michaelstevens8073 solar only works for on houses, on schools, ect which Arizona already does but massive solar farms are ineffective and pushing the small farmers out of business by stealing their land
@@N0n0b0dy Most of Arizona is empty desert, and solar has been improving exponentially same with batteries. Farmers can only farm near rivers or other water sources, which are quickly dwindling.
@@michaelstevens8073 the rivers are drying up from unnatural levels of population growth from immigration foreign and domestic. And on top of that who cares if there’s plenty of empty land, enjoy the mountains, cactus , birds and the sunsets . You capitalists and liberals have an addiction for destroying nature with the inevitable end goal of turning the entire world into a giant strip mall in the name of “progress” . Nuclear takes up less space, better for the environment, more reliable, and more powerful . But you don’t care, you just want to destroy nature because the thought of untouched land drives you guys crazy. “Who cares about farmers who literally grow the food you eat, I want a solar panel farm”
so the tree planting stopped and street painting resumed. how about getting rid of the massive amount of unnecessary parking lots. theres a ton of them.
Based on the information you provided, the areas with the most deaths are the low income neighborhoods. So wouldn't you think they would want to pilot the Cool Pavement Program in those neighborhood's? Well as a Phoenix Resident I can confirm that they are mostly in upper echelon neighborhoods of Paradise Valley, Biltmore, Scottsdale, Etc. Funny how they pilot in these areas mostly and not as much in the lower income areas. Don't get me wrong they have put some in these lower income areas minimal at most. However, most are not in the areas where people have access to Air-conditioning and or the means to fix or replace their systems. Their organizers will say that they have it around the city to test out different landscapes with fluctuating weather. Realistically though the landscape of the low income neighborhoods is vast and also see many weather options for them to study. True to history here in Phoenix, improvements always come first to the rich neighborhoods and maintaining will be upkept, which will not be true for those low income areas.
On the other hand, winters are mild. I'd say the big problem is the engineers making things for Phoenix are from more temperate zones, and they don't really design for a place like Phoenix. Engineering that would actually take the local environment into account would be have been a big help all this time. But fairly continuously the absolute MINIMUM is done. So it's good to see new approaches being tried, where it makes sense. BTW, you'd think there'd be a requirement for passive solar water heaters. There is no such thing.
That grey pavement is fucking blinding in the morning sun, I consistently drove through one of the neighborhoods they tested it in, bonus is the driving on that road was super smooth, but even a good solution usually has drawbacks and if that becomes widespread sunglasses while driving are going to be mandatory (if they weren't already lol)
Reminds me a bit of the case with Mendoza, however that city had large trees planted ever since it was funded, with tree lined rural roads also existing previously to protect farms from strong winds. The city used and still uses "acequias" that collect rain to water the street trees without intervention, they're kinda like tiny watercourses and when I tell you they're everywhere, I mean it. pretty much every street has an Acequia lining it before the sidewalk starts. The one problem happening with that however, is that the ever so sprawling grow of the suburbs is starting to really consume the water supply.
Did I miss parts like; more parks, better zoning laws so low rise and row houses become allowed, as walkable neighborhoods, so it doesn't sprawl so much, so you need less asphalt. Smaller roads, more biking infrastructure so less cars, again less asphalt. Green roofs and promoting wild flower gardens above those ugly, bee desserts of flat mown green lawns? Long grass, in combination with wild local flowers and herbs also lower local temperature (certainly if the alternative is shoveled black earth) and use less water.
All smart things, that will be fought by conservative nimby groups in wealthy suburbs like Scottsdale. There is a group there that fights every development over 4 stories. Hell there was a group of neighbors who fought a development less than a mile from the light rail in Central Phoenix because they were going to lose a grass patch on the developers lane that they were using for dog poop spots.
I used to live in Phoenix.. I can't believe i survived 18 years of that. I can tell you from experience, that heat is brutal. I had to job hunt when it hit 122°F in May of 2016.. it was awful.
Sure you realised but in case you didn't, the Toyota Center is in Houston, not Phoenix. Might have been generic drone footage you licensed but a bit confusing if you're a Rockets fan. The Suns play at the Footprint Center. .
I don't get it. I work outside here in Arizona and it's not that bad. You make it sound like we all die from the heat... people don't drink water and do it to themselves. It's really not bad here in PHX at all.
I spent 38 summers in the Phoenix area, but NEVER AGAIN. I moved to Northern AZ last year. We have 4 seasons with snow and a 15 - 20min drive from one side to the other (not 2 hr one way). 7:51 see how hot it gets a camel couldn't take it and died, so we started to build houses on it.
1. Reduce your parking lots, or at least cover them with solar panels. 2. Paint roofs white (there are special cooling materials for roofs as well). 3. Yes, plant lots of trees, although this desert climate is not suitable for many tree species. 4. Subsidize efficient air-conditioners. This will reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions, but also emit less heat to the outside. 5. Subsidize house/office insulation. Again, this will reduce electricity consumption, carbon emissions, emissions and heat emissions.
Born and raised here. We bail to California in the summer, as do many of us. It’s a very nice city, particularly Scottsdale and areas northeast of the valley. The biggest problem here is lack of continuity - Phoenix is just a hub, and there are probably 30 other cities in the metro area here. So it’s hard to have cohesive mitigation energy and environmental strategies
Live in England, had a second home in Phoenix, when leaving the UK it would be 70 arriving in Phoenix anytime in the summer months driving up the freeway from Sky Harbour it would be 117, I loved everything about the Phoenix heat, such a contrast from this side of the pond….
Not once did they address the homeless population. It is so bad here in AZ and we see people, HUMAN BEINGS, out in this heat and all they talk about are the citizens. Some homeless are drug addicts yes, but many of them used to live in low income housing and got pushed to the streets after COVID. Its truly heart breaking and its the main reason I clicked this video, I wanted to hear that they were going to put up water stations with shade or anything. We don't have enough shelters for the amount of homeless, and I know its not just AZ who has this issue. But as someone who lives here, it is one of the WORSE places to have nowhere to hide from the oppressive heat.
As someone who lives in the Phoenix metropolitan area , heat is not our issue. Water is. That state is nearly out. No solutions in action. The Western states are currently fighting over water rights but no one is really going to "win".
There is at least one step being taken.. the state is currently in talks with Mexico to build a desalination plant on the Gulf of California as an alternative water source.
@@JimmyRHigh we are really screwed them considering the Carlsbad plant charges over $2700 per acre-foot of water meanwhile CAP users are typical charged $150 per acre-foot. Meanwhile agriculture won’t have to pay as they continue to use the vast percentage of water to export water intensive crops all over the world for even cheaper rates than the typical resident.
@@JimmyRHigh good to have it to save lives in emergency situations but for daily use, desalination takes a lot of electricity and is therefore costly to produce.
Simply planting some broad-leaved evergreen trees around your house can have the same effect as air-conditioning (cooling) your house, plus adding oxygen to the surrounding area, completely free of charge.
Painting the asphalt a light color dramatically increases the sky-glow from the street light fixtures. This is harmful to migratory birds and has other negative effects such as decreased visibility of the stars.
Urban planning really is something incredibly important that I think should be much more accessible to citizens - the way the US plans its cities is so un enjoyably for people living in them who can’t walk anywhere or do anything without a car… asphalt and concrete really need to be replaced by something else…
Thanks for your video ! Such an important topic
I agree really is pathetic.
the city can benefit from both increase in economic activity and reduce the urban heat effect in 1 go just by transitioning from a car centric to a pedestrian centric urban design.
@@rahmanesa7063 100% agree
Phoenix is one of the most car dependent cities in the US
@@heidirabenau511 that makes sense because of the heat, but the cars just make it so much worse, so much hotter… it’s all a vicious cycle
I used to live in Phoenix. The sprawl is unreal, and few buildings are over a storey. As a student I didn’t have a car and spent a few years using the bus system. Typically buses would run half hourly or hourly. God help you if you miss a transfer. Often I would walk someplace slowly, and if you are walking it’s important to wear jeans, not shorts or dresses as the heat coming up from the asphalt is intense (and a lot of places don’t have sidewalks so you’re walking on asphalt or scrub). It’s counter-intuitive, but the cloth protects you from the heat (it’s the same reason long garments are traditionally worn in the Arabian Peninsula). I once waited for a bus for 2 hours that never showed up. I was about a mile from home so I thought I’d just walk it. It was one of the hottest days of the year and I’d already been waiting in the heat (no bus shelter) for a long time. By the time I got home I had heat stress. I went into the shower fully clothed to cool down, then went to bed. I felt sooo awful. Later when I had a car I couldn’t afford to fix the air con. If I was moving the breeze made it bearable. If I was sitting in traffic I was hating life. I think the main reason people move to Phoenix is because it’s perpetually sunny, but I don’t think it’s worth it.
I love it here. But a car with working air is a necessity. If you don't have one, you're not living right.
Sounds like a nightmare.
Been to Phoenix a handful of time but never willingly. It's an ugly city, nothing to do, just sprawled out houses horizon to horizon.
Remember, cheap living doesn't mean good living.
@@danieldaniels7571 Plenty of people don't own cars, cities should accommodate them.
Seems like all the bad things happen to you. I'd avoid getting near you
@@danieldaniels7571 that's the point. If someone who cannot afford or drive a car, like seniors and students, cannot do anything without needing a car, your transportation system needs a total overhaul.
Time to expand the light rail again, I guess.
Phoenix is the perfect example of how a desert city should *not* look like; what a devastating specimen of auto-dependent sprawl.
The place should never have existed.
I leave similar comments below a lot of videos from the US mainly showing parking lots ....
Didn't happen overnight, won't get fixed soon either.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If you don’t like Phoenix please don’t come. The locals love it and the none locals hate it and that’s why locals love it. People that live in places where people don’t want to live properly would like to be left alone,
@@adamhackett7173 My mom loved it when she lived in Phoenix in 1999. It was a beautiful city, she said. We migrated from India and temperatures like these are common in India in summer. It's a different experience living in a warmer climate.
I am an AZ native. I grew up in what used to be a small farming community about 35 miles southeast of Phoenix, called Queen Creek, back in the 1960s and 1970s. We never had air conditioning, at home or at school. We depended on swamp coolers. I worked in the fields as a kid during the summer. Never thought much about it. Now that whole area that used to be fields and desert is a nightmare of cookie cutter stucco houses in subdivisions with HOAs, artificial lakes and goof courses, streets, freeways, and shopping malls. Central AZ has been almost completely destroyed over the past 50 years. Instead of building more they need to start tearing things down. The Phoenix area is simply NOT the place for a large city.
isn't Queen Creek where they have that country festival thingy?
Geralds, how about taking a tour of 20 cities around the world by doing you tube virtual walks at the street level You would be SHOCKED how beautiful infrastructure is outside of the country.
Times are changing as you see brother. You are right.
Present day Queen Creek is literally suburban hell
@@dexdrurglum Yes it's a nightmare now, but it was a great place to live 50 years ago. I grew up there, went to the Queen Creek school grades 1-8, finished 8th grade in 1973. Only one building is left of the original school and it's now a museum. I have some friends who live just off Sossaman Road, about half a mile south of Ocotillo in the Ranchos Jardines area. They have horses. Those houses were all built in the '70s. I worked for both James Sossaman and Robert Ellsworth when I was a kid on weekends and during the summer. The Hunt Highway was all dirt and nothing out there but desert and farmland.
Cities across the medditerranean have for millenia been built as to provide shade through their architecture. While not exactly cold, it's still tolerable to walk around in the old town of Barcelona in 40+ weather. As with most problems in urban planning we solved this ages ago, but polticians and leaders just aren't willing to listen.
They’re listening, they’re just listening to developers that want to slap up the cheapest possible building and then move on to the next lot
felix im fed up with the united states! high crime, high health care cost, CRAP load of car congestion, high rents, nasty American personalities, Obesity that is ridiculous, no parks, no walking paths. The buss system sucks. Does Barcelona have these problems? There is no culture "Vancouver had immigrant culture centers".
Well, Felix, brother, while much of "the american west" does have a "Mediterranean" climate, the lessons learned from such don't cut much mustard as the times change as you will see.
@@EroticInferno except phoenix doesn’t have a mediterranean climate lol
I used to be a delivery driver. Believe it or not, the older the area was, the better designed and laid out it was. You would think it would be the opposite, but nope.
>build a city in the middle of a desert
>build highways and parking lots everywhere
>build cookie cutter car dependent homes
>only source of vegetation are golf parks and non-native trees
wow, why is phoenix so hot guys???
This
No one asks why it's so hot here... We live in a desert were all well aware lmfao. Even the surrounding rural areas reach similar temperatures. The city development obviously doesn't help it but it's not at all deserving of the blame. It's just the geography.
Also most natives here love the heat. For a lot of people especially because of air conditioning the heat isn't neccassarily a problem.
Also this video doesn't neccassarily show it but Phoenix and ESPECIALLY its suburbs like Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa are actually surprisingly COVERED in tons of trees despite us being a desert. If you ever look out from a sky scraper, hiking trail, or a plane you'd be surprised of how green our city actually is. However, some low income parts by downtown Phoenix are AWFUL at this admittedly.
@@geralferald except 12% in Phoenix is the same as 12% in Tempe
@@Lildizzle420 what
I live in Phoenix and for the life of me I cannot understand why everyone here uses the darkest shingles possible when replacing their roofs.
A new trend I have been seeing is dumb crap like matte black metal roof installed in already hot places. Maybe it looks cool but it adds to you and your neighbors heat bills, not to mention nobody will ever want to work on that.
@@randomvideosn0where Jesus that sounds awful!
@@randomvideosn0where matte black metal roof? Damn, I think they're trying to burn money and themselves at the same time
Living in Bavaria I measured roofs of some parking cars with an IR- Thermometer during the hottest days. Black cars often were ~85°C🌡🎈, bright car beside it ~60° Celsius.
Because Pinterest
Speaking from experience, the big problem about that road paint is that if youre driving west during sunset, it's almost impossible to see what's in front of you as the light reflects directly into your eyes. Big safety concern.
That’s exactly my thought
The solution to that is sun glasses, as a michigander sunglasses are a must driving in the winter on sunny days. And yes pavement makes it much hotter, I live north of a big city, halfway between the temp changes and most days you can feel a difference, I would never live down there again just on that and I'm a cold person who likes heat but it makes it unbearable, had to go to a graduation party down there this summer and was so happy to get back to my patch of woods.
@@cryst2hu we already wear sunglasses…don’t underestimate Arizona sun.
@@Djl472 I live in Phoenix. You're full of it. Sunglasses are fine. If YOUR sunglasses aren't good enough, that's on you.
@@Ozhull I’m talking about driving west during sunset…while the lightly colored pavement is reflective. It’s true my sunglasses aren’t the greatest, I don’t think I’m the only one wearing those $10.00 sunglasses from Ross though. It’s just my personal experience. With my schedule I go east during sunrise and going west during sunset. It’s not fun.
Nice video :)
They paint over roads with gray paint, maybe they should just limit the width of streets. Not sure why they need 3m roads for every single family home..
Road spaces are where the US has an advantage over a lot of countries. Narrow roads bring too much discomfort esp when there are a lot of cars.
@@7415_Gamer What discomfort? I would much rather trade in some road space for a dedicated bike path.
@@7415_Gamer nah. Should be making cities walkable. Car dependency is killing the country
@@7415_Gamer Lol. Spoken like a true car brain.
@@7415_Gamer which is why Americans speed over the limit
I’ve lived in the Phoenix metropolitan area since 1962. The 1.7 million population figure is only for the city of Phoenix. With the suburbs the total is closer to 5 million. This growth is unsustainable. We are in a severe drought and looking at losing 20% of our water allotment of Colorado River water. We need more efficient buildings, more renewable energy, more open spaces, more native trees and many other methods to mitigate the heat island effect. This asphalt coating is just one tool that the metro area needs to implement.
It's just gonna keep getting hotter friend. Gone are the days of comfy, peaceful, temperate global temperatures. We're moving towards a new norm.
And air conditioning is great until you have an energy crisis.
If only all these Californians would stop coming here
AND they are building a GIGANTIC water park south of Phoenix. AND they are giving big tax incentives to bring in HUGE data centers that use MASSIVE amounts of water (the cooling towers) and electricity. Glad I retired when I did and moved to BFE Montana.
📈🪞🚰 No hat makes any sense here. 🌜🔭 🌐🌌
🎓🪖🤿⛑🎩👒👑 🧢 🏴☠
We can ask Canada to send fresh water down by pipeline, although I doubt they would.
Phoenix literally means "an immortal bird that is always on *fire* ."
Grew up in Arizona and currently living in Phoenix. Have also lived in Los Angeles and Chicago for many years. Phoenix kind of sucks tbh, but efforts like this give me hope! The city is definitely responding to these problems and finally making efforts to cool off, densify, and become more accessible for cyclists and pedestrians.
Comments like "this city should never have existed" are pretty ignorant and based on a lot of assumptions. Humans have been living in desert climates around the globe for thousands of years. It's not necessarily outlandish to build a city in the desert, but it does require proper urban planning that is responsive to the city's specific needs.
So move…
@Moon Shine Not really sure what's so great about it though. I don't doubt that those other red cities suck, just not sure why so many people think Phoenix doesn't. The city itself sucks and has no real life. Tempe has a decent nightlife but it really doesn't compare to any city known for it's nightlife. Tons of poverty and crime. I heard gunshots almost weekly, my apartment complex had break-ins all the time, homeless people would go through the trash and just leave it everywhere, needles all over the place. Every park covered in needles unless you went waaaay out of the city itself. The suburbs there are un-livable in my opinion. Don't care how cheap it is, you'd have to pay me to live in one of them. Traffic was horrible. The people were rude. Not a great selection of restaurants. Downtown is incredibly disappointing for a city of that size. Only a tiny part of the year brings comfortable weather. Seeing 100 degrees at 1 in the morning in summer was depressing.
Yet, some people like it. People like Rob Halford confuse me, as he's visited toooons of cities in his life and still picks that area. I am perplexed.
@@PanthraxIV It's nice weather December to February, in the middle and upper class neighborhoods there is no crime and police respond, also driving is nice cuz there are no traffic cops so you can drive as fast as you want and you get good practice dancing with other drivers.
imigrate to canada its much much better
@@brokentombot A few months of "nice" weather isn't really worth it to me lol.
>in the middle and upper class neighborhoods there is no crime and police respond
with exception to gated communities, you are entirely wrong. Crime is everywhere in Phoenix no matter how hard they try and keep it west of the 17 freeway.
>also driving is nice cuz there are no traffic cops so you can drive as fast as you want and you get good practice dancing with other drivers.
That seems to be common in many major cities. Phoenix PD is known to be shit in general. Don't get me started on the sheriffs department there.
Fun note the image at 57 seconds is of downtown Tucson not Phoenix.
We also have the same problem.
@@ee-ef8qr I grew up in Tucson. It definitely has the same problem. Too much sprawl. But at least it was a naturally formed town built around a real water source.
I used to drive to Tucson from Phoenix frequently as part of my job and I can definitely say its hot there too but Phoenix is worse.
@@jacerjake how come Broadway has been under construction for 20 years?
@@TurdFergurson No idea. I haven’t lived in Tucson in over a decade just grew up there
As somebody who lives in Phoenix I just want to say there is not a 100% coverage rate for people with A/C. Many of the lower income housing units only have evaporative cooling aka "swamp coolers" which are not effective once the humidity goes above a certain percent, and we are not immune to power outages either in the summer thanks to dust storms and monsoons.
Public buildings, schools, workplaces, yes I would say those places are well above 90% in terms of "they have A/C", possibly approaching 100% for A/C coverage like the video randomly threw out, but when the pandemic forced people to stay home and they couldn't go use public facilities (libraries, swimming pools, etc.) I feel like that's the most likely reason for the increased heat deaths in 2020.
Swamp coolers are still perfectly adequate if you've lived here long enough, that's all we had in our single wide and it still works just fine, it is rarely humid enough for it not to work.
Back in 2004, I went to the TRB (Transportation Research Board) conference where I sat in a session where they presented best construction practices in Germany for roads. It was a eureka moment for me when I saw that it was routine for German construction crews to add crushed light stones to make the roads Grey instead of fresh black asphalt to lower the heat island effect. I can’t believe in all this time this practice has not been adopted in the states.
"by golly I saw Europe do something smarmt and da US don't do da same??!?!?"
@@iPeeOnBabies yes. perhaps we should stop being so stupid about our shitfrastructure & look to ACTUAL first world countries to solve our issues.
@@lucasdude brother, if you think the US will remain together after 2024 you are in for a treat.
@@iPeeOnBabies why are you in such a pissy mood
@@iPeeOnBabies you almost had a point before you went all “grandpa watching Bill O’Reilly.”
The comments on greening were depressing. After aiming for 25 canopy cover it was stated they are behind schedule, trees can suffer storm damage, some are hit by vehicles and there is some vandalism, meaning that the target was going to be revised (presumably down).
Yes, trees suffer storm damage, but they also act to slow wind speed, as a biologist put it, they can be difference between your roof being blown off. Trees also catch particles of pollution and store carbon in the soil while they are alive: the size of the canopy Is generally a good guide to the amount.
Those wide streets, likely contributing to higher speeds and collisions with stationary objects like tree, contribute to the heating effect. But there is the potential to make them more narrow and slowed allowing for separated and shaded foot and bike paths and rain gardens, to ensure that such rain as does fall has the best opportunity to drain into the soil. This keep moisture in it for longer allowing for healthier soil, plants and shade. So that for those parts of the year when the weather is pleasant, active transport can become a more attractive option and street plantings do a lot more for cooling, shade, water retention and habitat.
Not to mention the presence of natural greenery has a positive impact on human health.
Clearly water is an issue, so plant choices would need to be indigenous or adapted to dessert conditions. But the impression, perhaps unfairly, from this short video, was of aiming low in regards to streetscape cooling and greening rather than trying to trial and adapt best practice. It does make sense to go for easier achievements in tree planting where space is currently available, but simultaneously to be trialing best practice green and active travel street design.
Agreed. They need to promote certain tree species that have big root systems and won't be damaged easily in storms. Even if they take decades to grow. Big trees can tap into water deep underground, once they are established.
@@VanillaMacaron551 Many desert plants don't put their roots straight down, they can be rather shallow but wide to catch as much rainfall as possible when our infrequent rains finally come. Planting a native desert plant and affixing a drip irrigation system on the trunk makes for a poorly rooted plant. That is one reason they tip over in storms so much.
Been in Arizona my whole life. North Phoenix is beautiful. It’s an amazing state. It goes from low desert to high forest. Lakes and rivers to mountain plateaus. The inner city does leave some to be desired but I love Phoenix, it’s home.
Biome appropriate trees, shrubs vines, etc and rainwater harvesting to soil, and reusing grey water would go a much longer way to future-proofing Phoenix...
Roof gardens and painting roofs and west facing walls white would help, too.
The city called Phoenix for a reason.. 😂
🤣
I spent most of my life in the Valley. The environment has changed drastically. Inflation, traffic congestion, the rise in temperature, the attitude of people, both politically and pissoffedness is the reason I left the Valley for good and will never go back.
I was shocked to see all those roofs... not a solar panel in sight !
Heat is actually bad for the efficiency, believe it or not. It's like, you can't win in this world.
They generate power from light, not heat. They are more efficient at lower temps.
I kid you not, it gets hot enough here to lower their efficiency, they would need their own cooling system to function at 100%, lmao. And then you get to pay the power company AND whomever you bought the solar panels from. Heaven help you if one of our monsoons contain hail.
It's a red state and they actively discourage any type of energy that isn't fossil fuels.
@@DiogenesOfCa they're pretty common here in Texas, and they actually extract and refine fossil fuels here. There's a federal incentive for solar panels nationwide. But it's true, they aren't as efficient when they get hot. 😆
Maybe getting rid of those huge ass parking lot's will help. Also, can't imagine living in such a hot city. Wouldn't even considering it.
Where are we going to park our big American cars if we remove those parking lots? Why I live in Phoenix: because its not California, you don't have to shovel the heat in the summer, we have air conditioning, no huricanes, no floods, no mud slides, no tornados. Basically no natural disasters. If your city is not growing then it is dying. We have plenty of water by the way.
@@IceCreamManDLR I've been here over 50 years and love it. The only thing I don't love is too many people moving here, so somone saying they wouldn't even consider it because of the heat is music to my ears.
@@IceCreamManDLR Phoenix has no water.
I’ve driven through the neighborhoods with the cooling pavement. It looks hideous-covered in dark tire marks and oil stains.
grew up in Phoenix in the 1960s and visited in January the first time in 40 years. This video completely misses the overall pattern of urban development which has vast rivers of traffic flowing on their wide, highly developed freeway system. It's important to go and ride in cars 20, 30 hours like I did in a 4 day period with family member who seems to think this is a normal way to live. Weird there's no semi's just huge rivers of cars. Everything seems to be 20 miles away and they think this is normal.
One thing present in Los Angeles and San Diego mission revival architecture is liberal use of awnings that cover walkways to provide 24/7 shade.
This along with natural cooling techniques as seen in parts of the south that have old shotgun houses where the air circulates out of the home should be adopted more widely throughout the sunbelt in order for people have low cost options for staying cool
As an American I completely agree we need to rethink how urban planning impacts the way a city develops, especially in extreme regions. Utilizing design to reduce the impact of climate change is a must. Retrofitting alone won't get us there. But unfortunately it's not just sitting down and declaring a top-down policy over 1mil+ people. Hundreds, if not thousands, of considerations have to be assessed. It's easy to say "yeah just rip up all the asphalt, American cities are horribly designed anyway." This fails to take into account that American cities are designed to be pragmatic first, enjoyable second. When you have an urban population growing by literally millions year over year, and sometimes insurmountable local interests and politics at play, it's a slow process to turn the ship.
American cities are not designed to be pragmatic. If they were, you wouldn't have a sprawling car-dependent city in the middle of a desert.
NYC's times Square benefitted from ripping asphalt
Urban sprawl isn't pragmatic. Zoning laws should be easied, so low rise housing, row houses and small shops are allowed in neighborhoods. Now only single family and high rise are allowed, causing urban sprawl.
@@edopronk1303 I think you are missing about 70 years of history there. Urban sprawl was the result of a pragmatic approach to resolving the housing crisis after WWII. The Montgomery GI bill gave (most) Americans the means to purchase a home, and the rollout of suburbs was the infrastructure to match. Do what you can with what you have, the very concept of pragmatism. The problem that we now face, one that we recognize now with the benefit of 70+ years of hindsight, is that such a policy played forward over successive generations is wildly inefficient. In several cases it is also ineffective in meeting what we now recognize to be additional needs from our built environment. It doesn't need the needs of walkability, alternative transport, food distribution, population increase, etc. At least not efficiently and effectively. So yes, considering everything that we need to look for when considering a new development in the modern day, urban sprawl is no longer the most effective option in meeting the need. But it is not a fair argument to say that when the policy was first developed it was not pragmatic.
@@SteezyRider it was never a good idea to demolish countless neighborhoods all over the country and displace so many people just to build massive highways through downtowns. They ripped out tram tracks and shut down transit in so many cities for this to work... Literally killing so many cool historical cities that could have been so much more, e.g. Hartford. Even in Australia where things are better, people realize that suburban sprawl was a huge mistake from the start.
"It's a desert so things are always going to be warm."
Fact checked true. ✅
Do you want to go to the Gobi desert in the winter or Antarctica as the definition for a desert doesn't necessarily mean hot it just means that there is not much form of life
Antarctica enters the chat
@@heidirabenau511You're correct, but there's a little more to it. A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life - Wikipedia
@@heidirabenau511 "not much life" the Sonoran desert is one of the most biodiverse parts of america with many species only naitively found there
See deserts at night, my guy. Phoenix is supposed to be cool at night, but its paved sprawl prevents that
Phoenix is a desert. Phoenix can only plant desert trees or trees native to the snoring desert. The question is what controls the heat in the desert and what keeps people and animals cool in the desert. Maybe Phoenix could have public waterfoutians
They're running out of water too. I personally would build underground
"the snoring desert" Alright ya got me, I laughed at that, lmao. Anyways, I'd love to see where all that water for the fountains is coming from. Heat island effects the desert out here because rocks also retain heat but what gets me the most is that it DOES considerably cool at night. Actually, as soon as the sun goes down it instantly feels nicer. 95 degrees under the AZ sun and 105 degrees under the moon are worlds apart heat wise. It may get to 119 in the day but it will cool almost 30 or more degrees at night. A 115 day followed by 90 at night is cool, in ye olden days we'd just sleep outside in an Arizona room. it has worked for centuries out here.
Phoenix Bird here that's 27 years of age and having roots of birth here, I'm shocked I haven't seen this in my recommendations almost 2 weeks ago! I can say by experience that we get BRUTALLY HOT! 🔥 Hot enough that you can even cook a raw egg on the asphalt streets out here which I haven't done an environmental experiment myself but really adore how hot it gets here as my body has been adapted to the hot subtropical desert climate ever since! From what I've studied in history class throughout middle school, we started growing rapid in population during the 1960s when AC began being built and invented throughout the valley for many people to have jobs and moving to the metro region due to our 300+ sunny days annually and having a handful of outdoor activities for active living than most U.S. cities. We still do have a long way when it comes to heat strokes / hyperthermia as Phoenixians as what most people don't know that if you don't keep yourself hydrated and staying cool, you can be in great danger which is the main issue we have here. I know by experience as I saved a few men that almost died due to heat stroke as I always carry bottles of water with me whatever I walk to the grocery store to bringing a towel with me to cool my back as I tend to sweat easily due to social anxiety.
We may be one of the most BEAUTIFUL cities on earth due to our mountainous landscape & colorful sunsets that represents our state & city flag but I want to point out 3 reasons why people shouldn't move here.
1.🌞 We're not that safe when it comes to walking distance if you're a pedestrian as our sidewalk paths are quite narrow that you have a higher risk of being hit by vehicles that drive by during the day.
2.🌵 Transportation is a MAJOR issue around the valley if you don't drive a car like I do as you would have to walk quite a ways to get around when it comes to visiting parks or restaurants throughout the region.
3.🌴 We're flooded with So-Cals (people from California) that our traffic becomes quite populated throughout the day (mainly the weekends) and how we can be quite crowded. No offense to Californians even though I ADORE people from L.A. &/or San Diego that wants to live in our Grand Canyon State as I know the housing income is a major problem in California.
We have a lot of work to do to make the city a safer place to live when it comes to planting trees to have our citizens stay cool and being in more peaceful environments so that we wouldn't be seen as a concrete jungle.
Not sure if this helps for any state transplants that are foreigners to Arizona but that I could share as I'm proud of my city on how far it has been built and hoping we have a more developed future ahead of us as technology is slowly advancing for us in the Valley of the Sun! 🌞
Idk what parts of LA you're talking about, they can all stay over there.
An alu-foil emergency blanket could be a lifesaver, too.⛱🥵🔫
Give 💦in small gulps and very slow⏳ to avoid 🧟 🤮
A sunstroke 🌞🎇feels like a food poisoning🤢🤪🤒 for some days. 😴🛏💤🚽
Just your average Phoenix cope post!
There are a lot of new things that dont make sense. Like black aspalt, and black roofs. One of the reason we use a steep black roof in utah is so the snow melts and slides off and its stronger structurally to hold the weight of snow. But when was the last time phonix received snow fall? Perhaps a tile roof, something seen more often in say like california would make more sense.
A red roof reflects more light then a black roof would. The only down side i can see is that the tile roof absorbs more heat then the typical black sheets would.
i think people use asphalt-shingle roofs because it is the cheapest among the commonly available options in the US. maybe they could spend an extra $50-$100 and paint it white
In my part of Montana, we use tin roofs. 😊 Wildfires produce a lot of flammable particulates. We are currently having the warmest Autumn I've experienced in the last 20 years, too. But, no rain. We really need some precipitation.
So it is like this, ceramic roof tiles are going to last the life of the house but are more expensive. They get hot but they are durable. The dark asphalt thin tiles are much cheaper and on older houses. They are terrible, not as durable but since they are cheap they got used. A person that owns a house or trailer like that won't exactly have the funds to get a whole roof redone, they just have to deal with it and repair it if they can even do that. Corrugated metal roofs would be the best way to make our houses into solar ovens.
When the paint melts off the street signs... classic Pheonix moment
It is definitely hot here in the summer, but autumn, winter, and spring are wonderful when the high temperatures range from the 60’s to the upper 80’s and generally without humidity. It is definitely a car dependent city though and aircon is a necessity at certain times of the year. It is funny though because I think most people think of aircon as a luxury and so there is judgment about it being a need in Phoenix, which leads to the ugh it’s so stupid to have a city in the desert type of thinking. But think of winter in most of the rest of the country…are furnaces and radiators luxury? Why is there no judgment about people living in climates that are bitterly cold three months out of the year requiring fossil fuels to heat up their homes??
Alot of people just use tradtional methods to keep warm, wear thermals and layers inside, have smaller better insulated houses, and burn wood in a log fire if they have too. If you look at the traditional designs of houses and housing in the hot regions of the world, they have similar tradtional innovations, for example windcatchers, subterrainian housing, and narrows easily covered streets. Phoneix, being car based, and covered in roads, with far apart wide houses, ignores all of this long built up knowledge. The whole place needs zoning changes, and expansion to be done differently and sustainbly.
@@mysteryhombre81 I’ve lived in cold places like Chicago, Boston, Ohio. Most people are not burning logs in a fire to stay warm. They are burning fossil fuels to heat their homes. Sure, people wear thermals and layers, but people here when at home dress in a light manner to not be hot (like t-shorts and shirts) so that they save on their aircon bills. There was also a study out of Michigan that compared climate control energy demand. It found that climate control in Minneapolis is about 3.5 times as energy demanding as in Miami. This finding suggests that, in the US, living in cold climates is more energy demanding than living in hot climates…
My "judgment" is ALL of Earth is experiencing Climate Change now. The city dwellers will feel the worst of it sooner rather than later.
@@mysteryhombre81 I agree in zoning, but coming from Minnesota we need both heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. There is no way to keep warm enough when it’s below zero for a month or more straight, before wind chills.
I live in a city that has hot summers and I agree - we turn on the aircon as a comfort, health and safety measure, just as people in cold climates see it as normal to have heating. Forget the guilt - aircon is a life-saver. It also pairs beautifully with solar power - ie it's hot when the sun's shining - meaning if you have solar PV panels on your roof, running aircon in the daytime is pretty much free.
Silver (galvanised) tin rooves are most common here in Brisbane, Australia, as they reflect the heat. I was shocked to see all those dark-coloured rooves in Phoenix.
I´m surprised that PHX "just discovered" the effects of bright surfaces. "White roofing" exists since the early 1980s
Windows that are able to stop jeat but allow light can help in reducing the requirement of air-conditioning. Another solution can be to plant trees on road dividers. This allows for tree plantation without land use (you anyway need to have road dividers)
People also have to realize that to people who actually live here we don’t consider the weather to be hot unless it’s a over 105. If it’s 90 or below we wear pants
I bet most commenters here have never even flew over AZ let alone visited. They don't know that a 100 degree day is still nice weather. They don't know that 70 degrees is considered cold to us.
As someone who has lived in Phoenix my whole life, this is some HUGE cap. All summer long you hear nothing but complaints about our heat. Id be fucking rich if i had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “why do i live in the desert” over summer. Our outdoor recreational parks become barren wastelands in the summer daytime. I grew up skating in Phoenix and have regularly skated empty parks every single summer because hardly anyone wants to go outside unless they have to in the heat. Im not saying Phoenix is a bad place to live ive come to love it here. And its true that many people in Phoenix do have much more heat tolerance than people elsewhere. but acting like Arizonans are out frolicking around in any weather under 105 is a ridiculous exaggeration.
@@WillVroo ngl 105 and under is cooler than if it were above. he’s pretty much talking about anybody who’s lived here 10+ years. kind of a twist of his words to say anything about “frolicking” outside in weather under 105 since he didn’t say anything of the sort
@@ElfenLiedAgain he said it's not even hot until 105. That's entirely untrue and not how Arizonans act in my experience at all. They hardly even go to parks, and they complain like hell on a 100 degree day from what I've seen.
@@WillVroo Well you haven't been alive for too long if you are using words like 'cap' that way.
With all the sunshine you'd think you would see more solar.
110F is 43.3C for anyone that can't be arsed to look it up :)
Christians trainig for their hell holiday?
No alcohol, no smoke, no sugar, no carbs, no junk food and always compensate the sweating with water + right amount of electrolytes.
It is costless to give it a try.
I envy you guys in Phoenix
cheers
Whit all those dad jokes you were the coolest guy in the desert.
Underrated comment
I live in Phoenix and I’m sick af of this heat. It’s non freaking stop. It’s mid October and it’s STILL 97 degrees. Over this shit
Can people use swamp coolers instead of air conditioning in Phoenix? That would be a lot more energy efficient, and not heat up the outdoors as much.
1:23 Population growth isn't what increases the Heat Island Effect. It's the suburban development pattern. Car infrastructure like wide roads and parking lots cause the Heat Island Effect. That's not the same as population growth. The city could grow its population and DECREASE its land footprint at the same time by curbing suburban expansion.
Bike paths, mass transit, urban living, and trees will cool the city. Population growth did not do this. Doubling down on our defunct 1950s development pattern did this. Tomorrow's Build, do better and stop conflating the two. Phoenix's population growth didn't have to result in suburban sprawl and you know it.
Mother Earth cannot support 8 to 10 billion Humans.
Also you do not need to overbuild roads like they do in the Southwest. Those residential roads could be almost half as wide and still have the same utility.
The desert is hot. Always has been. What everyone forgets is, it's only that hot 4 months out of the year. The other 8 months, the weather is awesome.
What if gardens or tall grass were planted on top of parking garages? I take due to so ever-increasing floodings everywhere, it might not be the best option to build underground parking spaces, instead, planting gardens on top of them could decrease the amount of heat absorbed since north America's car-dependent neighbourhoods keep increasing and so does the need for parking spaces.
Flooding? The US West is still having drought. We have Wildfire Season.
And where pray tell is all that water for tall grass and gardens going to come from?
@@iminyourwalls8309 We already use ground water here, this would just deplete it faster. Most of our water table (in the south eastern portion of Maricopa County) is almost 200ft underground. Another thing OP is ignorant of is just how hard our ground is, it is as strong as concrete in places. There is a reason almost nothing is underground unless it needs to be.
I know this might sound entitled and very American of me, and I know almost the entire world uses Celsius and the Metric System (of which, I’m not 100% familiar with yet), but when you’re talking about American cities/American problems thats going to attract American audiences, Its super annoying to have the information presented with Celsius/Metric measurements. Of course, you can still include them but for the sake of the American audience like myself, a quick translation would be appreciated.
I literally can’t translate 43 degrees C in my head. I can picture 100 degrees F and basic measurements like 0 degrees C and -40 degrees C but I can’t picture anything other than that and since this concern is literally about my country, I’d rather know yk. Same thing with meters, some channels would say stuff about American skyscrapers with meter measurements and I literally cannot picture it at all
Increased albedo (surface reflection) also helps against climate change globally.
Increased libido FTW!!!
“Climate change” is bunk nonsense.
Huh? Climate changes are more complicated.
Living up to the name
I lived in Phoenix for a while and during the summer months I just stayed in doors. Even at night it’s sooo hot. But the winter months were amazing. But yes some neighborhoods were cooler than others because of trees and what not. Its just so big and keeps growing. Cost of living is increasing and rent and home prices too. Soo more people are becoming homeless so I think the number of heat related deaths will continue to rise
There have also been a remarkably high number of people who died in their home when their A/C went out. Mostly elderly folks and very young children in those instances, but that's still ridiculous.
I know Phoenix and it was really interesting to see how the city is making a start to tackle this issue.
Howard
The first thing they could do is keep reminding Californians that having a full lawn of grass is completely stupid here
I have lived in Phoenix for 30 years, and yes summers can be hot but from about mid-October until the end of May it is one of the best places to live. This past summer was wet which resulted in one of our mildest in a long time.
Summer temperatures there could continue to rise into the 130 degrees F range and a large portion of people will say they're not any hotter than they've always been, and just spend more time indoors with their A/C on full blast. More likely the city may just slowly empty out and shrink as Detroit or Pittsburgh did in the last century.
It's still growing faster than ever
@@danieldaniels7571 Yeah, it is.
@@danieldaniels7571 ...until it's not.
Frog in the pan thing?
@@danieldaniels7571 Because of tech companies migrating there but overtime, once those businesses opted for greater; cheaper pastures, Phoenix wouldn't have anything to support it's economy.
Literally, there is nothing else supporting PHX's growth
I moved to Phoenix in 1990 and went to refrigeration school (silly me). We had our first 122 degree day. My 25 or so year old A/C worked until I got the bills. Since I was in the A/C business, I put on the highest efficiency unit I could get and that helped greatly plus over insulated everything I could. The average roof temperature (where the majority of the units were located) went well north of 140. Inside the attic, I measured 156 degrees. Lighter roofs DID make a difference. After 12 or more hours in hot attics and hot roofs when I would get home I would leave a trail of clothes from the front door to the pool. I would have my wife bring me a gallon of ice tea and told her not to bother me for an hour or so so I could get my internal temp down. I did that shitty thankless job for 25 years until I came off a roof. And it is getting worse down there between the heat and the crime and drugs and the traffic, I had enough and retired and moved away. It used to be if you went west on Olive Ave towards the Air Force base you went past a few fields that were growing whatever and the temp dropped by 20 degrees and it was such a pleasant surprise, but when I left in 2005, all that farm land had been converted into houses. And more houses. And yet MORE houses.
It just keeps spreading and growing. They just passed a permit to a new city by Apache Junction that’s going to be 1 million people minimum in the next 10 years. One thing phoenix has is jobs which is nice
I have no clue how people live there, I visited last year and couldn’t wait to leave and don’t ever plan on going back. It was 103 & 105 the days we were there!
that's like saying "I don't know people live here, it was -15 below zero and ill never go back" well yeah you came in the middle of January
The summers can be unbearable to visitors, but for half of the year we enjoy 70-80° weather that's why we get so much tourism from Canada and other northern states during the winter, fall, and some in spring.
I love it here and have been here over 50 years. 105 is perfect swimming pool weather.
It’s beautiful but not for everyone. Enjoy your stifling humidity wherever . 😂🤷🏻♀️
@@johnperic6860 nice. As long as you stay hydrated, wear sunscreen, and a hat which shades your face it's all good. The important thing to remember is when you're a little less than half out of water it's time to turn around a head back.
What's interesting is not that Phoenix is hot, it that so many people live there. What would you move to a city where you need an oven mitt to open your car door?
because I haven't seen a single snowflake in 10 years, growing up in Wisconsin my mom would wake me up at 5 AM to shovel the snow so she could go to work and she would call me at 3 PM to shovel the snow so she could come home from work.
@@Lildizzle420 Wisconsin and Phoenix are two extremes. There are places with no snow that aren't deserts.
Opening the car door isn’t the problem, it’s touching the steering wheel when you get in the car that nearly burns your hands. If you don’t use a reflector for your windshield, getting into your car in the middle of summer is hell
I don't have that problem, but I was smart enough to get a place with covered reserved parking. I've been here over 50 years and love it.
@@lesliecas2695 and deserts with snow.
Hi there! I am doing a research project for my "Designing Materials for Sustainability" class, and I was wondering if it was possible to share your sources about the effects of these changes of materials (using materials with a smaller thermal strain coefficient) effect Pheonix's climate. That would be greatly appreciated!
You’re just going to have to google search it.
These are all bandaid solutions. Phoenix desperately needs to change to rail based infrastructure. Subways/trains don't contribute much to the heat island effect, certainly not as much as roads. The roads themselves need to be narrowed and ideally lined with trees, or possibly trees down the center.
Whole vid when you could have said all phoenix is doing is painting some roads grey and planting some trees
You’re missing a “few” things here.
@@martinc.720 no that about covers it ....well metaphorically because we're still in the sun.
@@Lildizzle420 I mean what the vid talks about.
But you knew that, you just wanted to argue
I have a second home In Lake Havasu City, which is almost always hotter than Phoenix. I find the heat wonderful and invigorating. And, like someone else previously mentioned, it's not really considered hot over there unless the temperature rises above 105. 115 is actually a normal summer day. You must be careful, however. The heat most certainly can kill you, although I don't think it is nearly as dangerous or lethal as the freezing cold temperatures of some other states. I did have a neighbor who fell asleep sunbathing in her backyard during a 125 degree day, and it killed her.
Wonderful and invigorating 😂😂😂😂😂
I grew up in Michigan, livded in Phoenix for a number of years, and am now back in Michigan. I'd argue the heat is far more dangerous than the cold. If power were to go out in Phoenix for a week straight in July you'd have a ton of fatalities because you cant escape the heat or produce cooling. In colder climates you just throw some wood in the fireplace and huddle around it with some blankets. You can make heat for free. You cant cool without electricity.
Don't expect non-Arizonans to know stuff like that. I'm sure most heat related deaths are from people out of state visiting or just moved here. Anyone who has lived here a while knows to respect the sun and the heat. Or they just have a second residence in the High Country if they have money.
I visit Phoenix every other year for a week or so and couldn't imagine living there long term, considering I'm from Chicago and don't like hot weather like my significant other..
Med cities know how to mitigate against this through density, compactness and tight streets next to communal parks/land but this goes against American dreams of expansive land ownership and staking the territory of the individual.
Realistically they really need to begin the infill process and get rid of most of their cars to allow for shaded streets, but it would likely take a century to reverse their existing bad-planning. We don't have a century.
Had the same thought as well. A lot of timeless lessons to be learned from how construction is done for centuries in arid and hot environments like in the Mediterranean and middle east. Sadly, even people there are increasingly overlooking those lessons. Developers and city planners need to really take heart that the desert is no place for mcmansions, green lawns and twelve lane city roads.
In my junior year of high school, I went on a field trip to Phoenix for a fbla(future business leaders of america) conference. At the convention center I joined a class that was organized by the Phoenix metro department of transportation, and they asked us all what we thought should be improved. Half of the class said four way stops and the other brought up public transportation. The organizers were very determined to expand rail and bus lines, hopefully it'll start to fruition.
Phoenix actually has excellent planning.
@@danieldaniels7571 Almost nothing in America has good planning. It might be good relative to other American planning but with that heat loading and sprawl you simply can't call it well-planned. Phoenix has 3000 people per mile, most European cities which make good use of space have somewhere in the region of 10000 plus at least
Yea LA has tried Cool Seal, but it created other problems from the reflection. Solve 1 problem, create another. The reflection made day time temperatures over that area around 10 degrees or more hotter when it was in the low 90s. This made waiting for buses at stop dangerous, if used on freeways, the neighborhood around them worse, and a sense of fall security. Though i probably solves more than it causes with the protection of the road materials and lower consumption of energy at night (though it's the daytime/afternoons when our grid it taxed to its' limits. The issue become, if droughts are worse natural cover becomes impossible to make/maintain, so if you want to reflect the heat, stay inside, then we have to spend millions if not billions of full shelters for things like bus-stop, hydration centers to a higher standard and more frequent at outdoor parks, the big homeless issues that could compound this, and if we are just meant to stay inside all summer, then why live in those areas at all, when there is already energy and water shortage issues?
I personally believe Arizona/the south west has a huge opportunity in solar. My town, Yuma, is literally the sunniest place in the US.
Could you imagine what a powerhouse Arizona would be if we could export renewable energy. Maybe Elon Musk could hook us up with batteries, or some other battery producer. Also chip manufacturers are expanding their manufacturing in the state which is awesome.
Arizona is known for its nuclear , the cleanest most powerful energy there is and the future governor Kari Lake wants to build more nuclear and be an exporter to people like California who have blackouts because they think they can run a state off windmills and solar panels because a bunch of elites and billionaires said solar and wind is “the hip new thing”
@@michaelstevens8073 solar only works for on houses, on schools, ect which Arizona already does but massive solar farms are ineffective and pushing the small farmers out of business by stealing their land
@@N0n0b0dy Most of Arizona is empty desert, and solar has been improving exponentially same with batteries. Farmers can only farm near rivers or other water sources, which are quickly dwindling.
@@michaelstevens8073 the rivers are drying up from unnatural levels of population growth from immigration foreign and domestic. And on top of that who cares if there’s plenty of empty land, enjoy the mountains, cactus , birds and the sunsets . You capitalists and liberals have an addiction for destroying nature with the inevitable end goal of turning the entire world into a giant strip mall in the name of “progress” . Nuclear takes up less space, better for the environment, more reliable, and more powerful . But you don’t care, you just want to destroy nature because the thought of untouched land drives you guys crazy. “Who cares about farmers who literally grow the food you eat, I want a solar panel farm”
so the tree planting stopped and street painting resumed. how about getting rid of the massive amount of unnecessary parking lots. theres a ton of them.
Based on the information you provided, the areas with the most deaths are the low income neighborhoods. So wouldn't you think they would want to pilot the Cool Pavement Program in those neighborhood's? Well as a Phoenix Resident I can confirm that they are mostly in upper echelon neighborhoods of Paradise Valley, Biltmore, Scottsdale, Etc. Funny how they pilot in these areas mostly and not as much in the lower income areas. Don't get me wrong they have put some in these lower income areas minimal at most. However, most are not in the areas where people have access to Air-conditioning and or the means to fix or replace their systems. Their organizers will say that they have it around the city to test out different landscapes with fluctuating weather. Realistically though the landscape of the low income neighborhoods is vast and also see many weather options for them to study. True to history here in Phoenix, improvements always come first to the rich neighborhoods and maintaining will be upkept, which will not be true for those low income areas.
The funny part about this watching this video is that I lived that whole summer in Phoenix some kind of glad to be back in Huntington Beach
On the other hand, winters are mild. I'd say the big problem is the engineers making things for Phoenix are from more temperate zones, and they don't really design for a place like Phoenix. Engineering that would actually take the local environment into account would be have been a big help all this time. But fairly continuously the absolute MINIMUM is done. So it's good to see new approaches being tried, where it makes sense. BTW, you'd think there'd be a requirement for passive solar water heaters. There is no such thing.
That grey pavement is fucking blinding in the morning sun, I consistently drove through one of the neighborhoods they tested it in, bonus is the driving on that road was super smooth, but even a good solution usually has drawbacks and if that becomes widespread sunglasses while driving are going to be mandatory (if they weren't already lol)
Reminds me a bit of the case with Mendoza, however that city had large trees planted ever since it was funded, with tree lined rural roads also existing previously to protect farms from strong winds. The city used and still uses "acequias" that collect rain to water the street trees without intervention, they're kinda like tiny watercourses and when I tell you they're everywhere, I mean it. pretty much every street has an Acequia lining it before the sidewalk starts. The one problem happening with that however, is that the ever so sprawling grow of the suburbs is starting to really consume the water supply.
Did I miss parts like; more parks, better zoning laws so low rise and row houses become allowed, as walkable neighborhoods, so it doesn't sprawl so much, so you need less asphalt.
Smaller roads, more biking infrastructure so less cars, again less asphalt.
Green roofs and promoting wild flower gardens above those ugly, bee desserts of flat mown green lawns?
Long grass, in combination with wild local flowers and herbs also lower local temperature (certainly if the alternative is shoveled black earth) and use less water.
All smart things, that will be fought by conservative nimby groups in wealthy suburbs like Scottsdale. There is a group there that fights every development over 4 stories. Hell there was a group of neighbors who fought a development less than a mile from the light rail in Central Phoenix because they were going to lose a grass patch on the developers lane that they were using for dog poop spots.
These ideas have been around for a long time and should of been started a decade ago.
Like in 1900.
That's how it is here until a large part of population is negatively affected good luck getting a politician in willing to accomplish it
As someone who was born and raised in Vegas, I feel their pain.
I lived in both Vegas and Phoenix. At least in Vegas, they do not try to be something they are not.
I used to live in Phoenix.. I can't believe i survived 18 years of that. I can tell you from experience, that heat is brutal. I had to job hunt when it hit 122°F in May of 2016.. it was awful.
Need more of that! What about a mini-series on climate change adaptation strategies in cities?
I wish I had your optimism Xandalf. 🌹
as long as republicans denie climate change its gonna get worse
You should make sure your B-roll is from the place you're talking about because the Toyota Center isn't in Arizona. However good information.
Sure you realised but in case you didn't, the Toyota Center is in Houston, not Phoenix. Might have been generic drone footage you licensed but a bit confusing if you're a Rockets fan. The Suns play at the Footprint Center. .
I believe he was using that as an exposé for the “less room for greenery”, its after a series of shots of other cities
As a Phoenician that gave me a chuckle, as did the shot of downtown Tucson.
I don't get it. I work outside here in Arizona and it's not that bad. You make it sound like we all die from the heat... people don't drink water and do it to themselves. It's really not bad here in PHX at all.
I would not want to know how these States will be in the next 25-30 years 😳 Many places won't be inhabitable with this heat.
I live in Phoenix. It’s hot as fuck during late April - Mid October. Other than that it’s like shorts weather all year
I spent 38 summers in the Phoenix area, but NEVER AGAIN. I moved to Northern AZ last year. We have 4 seasons with snow and a 15 - 20min drive from one side to the other (not 2 hr one way).
7:51 see how hot it gets a camel couldn't take it and died, so we started to build houses on it.
lol, it would be a real laugh if millions of others followed your path. Flagstaff wouldn't be happy
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@@jdog22c34 please no
You mean Flagstaff, right?...
I can take the heat so I can stay but yeah more should consider the High Country rather than complaining about it down here in the Valley.
Born and raised in Phoenix. It's not really all that hot until it's above 115. Stay in the AC and you're fine. Or, get some pool time.
Plant more tees? Drought. Hello.
I’m an air conditioning technician in Arizona, the attics get around 60 Celsius or 140 F let me know your questions!
You guys must rack in some serious cash! I live in Tempe.
1. Reduce your parking lots, or at least cover them with solar panels.
2. Paint roofs white (there are special cooling materials for roofs as well).
3. Yes, plant lots of trees, although this desert climate is not suitable for many tree species.
4. Subsidize efficient air-conditioners.
This will reduce electricity consumption and carbon emissions, but also emit less heat to the outside.
5. Subsidize house/office insulation.
Again, this will reduce electricity consumption, carbon emissions, emissions and heat emissions.
I've often wondered why clay roof tiles always seem to come in reddish or other dark colours.
Born and raised here. We bail to California in the summer, as do many of us. It’s a very nice city, particularly Scottsdale and areas northeast of the valley. The biggest problem here is lack of continuity - Phoenix is just a hub, and there are probably 30 other cities in the metro area here. So it’s hard to have cohesive mitigation energy and environmental strategies
Live in England, had a second home in Phoenix, when leaving the UK it would be 70 arriving in Phoenix anytime in the summer months driving up the freeway from Sky Harbour it would be 117, I loved everything about the Phoenix heat, such a contrast from this side of the pond….
Not once did they address the homeless population.
It is so bad here in AZ and we see people, HUMAN BEINGS, out in this heat and all they talk about are the citizens.
Some homeless are drug addicts yes, but many of them used to live in low income housing and got pushed to the streets after COVID.
Its truly heart breaking and its the main reason I clicked this video, I wanted to hear that they were going to put up water stations with shade or anything.
We don't have enough shelters for the amount of homeless, and I know its not just AZ who has this issue. But as someone who lives here, it is one of the WORSE places to have nowhere to hide from the oppressive heat.
I was in Phoenix last month for a while on a trip to the Grand Canyon. I didn't mind the heat. Low humidity😎
I've lived here over 50 years. Itza dry heat.
♥️
It's a beautiful Planet. We Humans have been terrible Guardians.
They need to learn from Tucson. They’ve managed to cool their city on average of 20°F via vegetation and greening measures.
How much is 120 in Celsius?
48c
@@nicktubby9710 dam that's hot
When I was young I used to live in Phoenix I’m from there and we used to paint the tree trunks white so they’ll reflect heat
As someone who lives in the Phoenix metropolitan area , heat is not our issue. Water is. That state is nearly out. No solutions in action. The Western states are currently fighting over water rights but no one is really going to "win".
Soon, clean Water will be more valuable than gold. 💙 He who controls the Water will Rule the World.
There is at least one step being taken.. the state is currently in talks with Mexico to build a desalination plant on the Gulf of California as an alternative water source.
@@JimmyRHigh we are really screwed them considering the Carlsbad plant charges over $2700 per acre-foot of water meanwhile CAP users are typical charged $150 per acre-foot. Meanwhile agriculture won’t have to pay as they continue to use the vast percentage of water to export water intensive crops all over the world for even cheaper rates than the typical resident.
@@JimmyRHigh good to have it to save lives in emergency situations but for daily use, desalination takes a lot of electricity and is therefore costly to produce.
Simply planting some broad-leaved evergreen trees around your house can have the same effect as air-conditioning (cooling) your house, plus adding oxygen to the surrounding area, completely free of charge.
Honestly, from a different perspective I think that phoenix Arizona is going to be a pioneer in technology to fight the effects of global warming.
Imagine thinking Arizona would do anything in response to climate change 😂😂😂
I am use to Arizona heat
Born and raised in Phoenix! I used to love it as a kid! Got so big!! Alot of great memories there!!! Sunnyslope!!!
Meth central
@@julioalberto2794 ya it was bad when I was there!!
Everyone's still moving out west and they have no fucking water lol
i have a fear that we're going to end up living more like astronauts in future
Great and I’m in Minnesota we’re winter starts in late September
Minnesota
It has Lovely weather for 6-7 months of the year. Summer not so much.
Water?
Painting the asphalt a light color dramatically increases the sky-glow from the street light fixtures. This is harmful to migratory birds and has other negative effects such as decreased visibility of the stars.
Pitts
💡🪲Dimming street light was nice too .🎑
time for underground walkways like vancouver
So all the California homeless can move there?
Downtown Phoenix has some, but they're not publicly accessable