Tag: Neighborhoods

City warmth mapping undertaking in NYC finds poor neighborhoods hotter

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Poorer neighborhoods are hotter than wealthier ones.

That is the overall result of the New York component of a national project to map urban heat islands. Scientists have long known that urban areas generate heat, but have not yet been able to map it street by street.

On a hot summer day in New York City last July, volunteers swarmed into cars with sensors to track heat and humidity. They traveled from the crowded tenements and truck-lined streets of the South Bronx to the open avenues of Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The heat trackers told an impressive story. On an afternoon in July, there was at least 7 degrees difference between the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City, and the Upper East Side of Manhattan, one of the richest. The difference between the South Bronx and Central Park was even bigger: almost 10 degrees.

This type of heat mapping is becoming increasingly important as climate change causes global temperatures to rise and more people to move to urban areas. According to the United Nations, the proportion of city dwellers will increase from 55% today to 68% by 2050. In addition, as temperatures rise, the overall differences between the hottest and coolest areas increase, exacerbating the class and race divide.

“We get extremely granular data. Street level data. What currently exists is satellite data of where the total of New York City’s streets are, “said Dr. Liv Yoon, researcher at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

The data can help communities target their financial resources to lower temperatures by building more rooms, adding lighter roofs, leaving more space between buildings and opening more cooling centers during heat waves.

“We want to empower the local citizens and scientists who have participated so that they own the data, because we often hear them go to the authorities and say, ‘We have this problem, but they are often answered with’ You ‘when faced with anecdotes and emotions cannot come to us. We need hard data, “said Yoon.

Heat is the most dangerous natural hazard in cities

Melissa Barber, a native of the Bronx and founder of an activist organization United the South Bronx, has fought for everything from community gardens to redesigning the Bronx waterfront to cool the area. Now she’s working with Yoon, using heat mapping to plead with local officials and property developers to switch.

“As community members who actually fight for justice, social justice and environmental justice, we can now say:“ There is current data that says: ‘We breathe a different air.’ There is current data that says, ‘We see and feel heat differently than anywhere else,’ ”said Barber.

“Areas outlined in historic red certainly have less infrastructure that is conducive to cooling. They have fewer green spaces,” said Yoon, who spoke with CNBC, one of the very few community gardens in the South Bronx – a garden that Barber helped design.

Barber says data will give it more power to transform real estate development in poorer parts of New York City.

“We really need to think about how we shape communities. When we talk about historical injustice and this redlining – there were no parks in this plan. There was no water included in this planning buffers that actually allow us to experience the climate differently did not exist and do not exist for many of our urban communities, “said Barber.

The temperature sensors were provided by Oregon-based CAPA Strategies, a climate data and analysis company that works with the federal government, local communities, and nonprofits.

“It really matters because heat is one of the most insidious killers in cities. It kills more people than any other natural hazard,” said Vivek Shandas, a consultant at CAPA.

Shandas notes that climate change is increasing the stakes and exacerbating the effects of the heat on the local economy, which is now stalling more often due to deadly heat.

“We see a greater heat intensity. We see these heat waves last longer and we see heat waves coming through more often, but we still use a single number to tell us what the temperature is a city or region for, “added Shandas.

New York is one of 12 cities participating in this year’s mapping campaign in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Flood of cash can cease literal flooding in our neighborhoods

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We have followed (the) excellent coverage of the Journal on the Infrastructural Legislation of Congress and the legislative coincidences of NM that might contribute to it. The city’s decade plan for investment improvement projects should also be included in this conversation.

One need that usually remains in the shadows is flooding. (The Sunday Journal of September 5) mentioned the flooding in Rio Rancho.

Well, we’ve had 7 floods here in the heart of Albuquerque Council District. They have invaded homes and flooded sizable lots in the Mile Hi and Pueblo Alto neighborhoods.

Mile Hi, where we live, suffered two severe and somewhat frightening floods in less than a month, one on May 31st and a second on July 20th.

Now every time we hear thunder we worry that an even worse event might rush through our streets. We have entered an age of climate change, which in our case is being driven by monsoon humidity.

The leaders of the McDuffie-Twin Parks neighborhood, which includes Twin Parks City Park, spent nearly four years fending off a joint attempt by the City / AMAFCA to build a giant rainwater catchment pit in their magnificent Twin Parks City Park. This is an example of a misdirected flood control strategy targeting more than a dozen green spaces in the NE Heights, including Twin Parks, Alvarado Park, Jerry Cline Park, Mark Twain Elementary, and other spaces needed for urban relief in the older structure The Japanese call it “natural bathing”.

This plan has already created far too much conflict and delay. A new beginning is needed, more neighborhood-centered and more focused on the residents. Some of these new infrastructure funds should be used to work out this new plan.

Concerned neighbors have formed an ad hoc group called the Stormwater Drainage Management Team.

We have contacted our city councilor and her staff with generally positive results and expect a joint study with the involvement of Pueblo Alto in the near future.

We also visited (with) several of the candidates for D-7 and showed them in detail the flood route and a main source of rainwater runoff for Mile Hi: the Fair Plaza Shopping Center in Lomas and San Pedro. On-site measures to reduce rainwater, which should be of benefit to all parties, have been proposed, but a recent meeting between city officials and Fair Plaza owners failed to reach even a preliminary agreement. A new approach is needed, including a serious assessment of the capacity of the major sewers below San Pedro and San Mateo.

Our map also shows how our rainwater flows under the San Mateo sound / art wall, rushing north over the four lanes and caused accidents by aquaplaning on May 31st.

Finally, floods in the NE heights and in the entire urban area raise important questions of social justice. Residents who have suffered the most from flooding are more likely to be found in lower-income areas.

The new federal, state and city infrastructure legislative packages offer a great opportunity to finally tame the large number of flood waters in the city. Let’s get it right this time.

His model of success: Heavy7Hearts designer Patrick Smith sews his personal means | Neighborhoods

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Heavy7Hearts shirt and hat

Patrick Smith models two of his favorite designs Heavy7Hearts’ early days of news he believed his UW-Stevens Point campus should hear.


Courtesy Heavy7Hearts

He had classmates model the objects for videos and photos he would take for social media. And he wore his gear on campus, including those student government meetings. “Because it was such a strong message, people kind of felt. And that’s exactly what I wanted, ”said Smith.

Later, as he worked his way through school, he took jobs at local screen printing companies to learn the process himself. If he could print his own products, he thought, he would not have to deal with setbacks from printers who viewed his messages as arsonists.

And he didn’t stop there. In addition to wanting to print on blank factory clothes, Smith taught himself how to sew youtube videos and friends. He called the line Heavy7Hearts for the seven days in which God created the earth according to the Bible.

His goal: “Change the world one trend at a time.”

After graduating in 2018, Smith returned to a Madison who, to his eyes, was as he had left him. He took jobs in after-school programs where he saw children facing the same challenges and lack of support that he had encountered. He saw people without a home in the streets and thought of his own family’s struggle to put a roof over their heads.