Cooling does not only happen on the individual or building scale – it can also be done on the neighborhood scale through proactive land use choices. Shade, plant life, reflective cool roofs, and other engineered solutions are all options for limiting extreme heat for everyone in the community. Careful planning helps organize these options to best effect.
Neighborhood cooling is also an equity issue: MAPC research has shown that hot weather is especially hard on lower-income neighborhoods that have fewer options for relief. These neighborhoods tend to have more paved surfaces, denser development, and fewer trees, meaning that they absorb more heat during the day and don’t cool down as much at night. This results in “heat islands” that can be up to 20 degrees hotter than surrounding areas. These disparities often trace back to histories of systemic racism and disinvestment, including discriminatory practices like redlining, that shaped which neighborhoods received tree canopy, parks, and investment and which did not. As a result, activities that center on planting trees in urbanized areas, shading walkways and trails, and including heat resilience features in future open space plans can be especially important in these places.
One community offers a useful model of integrating heat and equity into land use planning. In partnership with MAPC, the City of Malden updated its Open Space and Recreation Plan (OSRP) and brought climate data directly into the process. The project team used tree canopy, heat hotspots, and flood risk to help decide where open space improvements were needed most. Malden made cooling one of the lenses for setting priorities, so the parks and green spaces that rise to the top are also the ones that can do the most to cool vulnerable neighborhoods.
Blog Caption: Hot Takes: How do you stay cool in the summer? Learn how one special tree makes a difference! Part of the MAPC Heat Storytelling project.
We recommend building on this model; Communities can explore climate vulnerability and land surface temperature data for to see which local areas are most in need and consider which upcoming plans could incorporate heat resilience as a factor.
MAPC and our partners also offer several resources to help figure out what strategies are right for you, and to implement them:
- Climate Resilience Playbook is an online, interactive tool that local planners can use to identify, prioritize, and implement resilience actions for their communities.
- Climate Resilient Land Use Strategies is a collection of real regulatory language and policy examples that communities can adapt to address climate impacts, including heat, through their own zoning and bylaws. It spans tools like tree protection, design standards, and heat-resilient zoning, with examples drawn from MAPC's 101 communities and beyond.
Tune in tomorrow for our final Heat Week topic – cooling our homes and buildings!