Programs and Communities

The spatial configuration of cities can affect how urban environments alter local energy balances. Previous studies have reached the paradoxical conclusions that both sprawling and high-density urban development can amplify urban heat island intensities, which has prevented consensus on how best to mitigate the urban heat island effect via urban planning. To investigate this apparent dichotomy, we estimated the urban heat island intensities of the 50 most populous cities in the United States using gridded minimum temperature data sets and quantified each city's urban morphology with spatial metrics. The results indicated that the spatial contiguity of urban development, regardless of its density or degree of sprawl,was a critical factor that influenced the magnitude of the urban heat island effect. A ten percentage point increase in urban spatial contiguity was predicted to enhance the minimum temperature annual average urban heat island intensity by between 0.3 and 0.4 °C. Therefore, city contiguity should be considered when devising strategies for urban heat island mitigation, with more discontiguous development likely to ameliorate the urban heat island effect. Unraveling how urban morphology influences urban heat island intensity is paramount given the human health consequences associated with the continued growth of urban populations in the future.

This paper explores how urbanization, through its role in the evolution of Urban Heat Island (UHI), affects residential water consumption. Using longitudinal data and drawing on a mesoscale atmospheric model, we examine how variations in surface temperature at the census tract level have affected water use in single family residences in Phoenix, Arizona. Results show that each Fahrenheit rise in nighttime temperature increases water consumption by 1.4%. This temperature effect is found to vary significantly with lot size and pool size. The study provides insights into the links between urban form and water use, through the dynamics of UHI.

The relationship between the characteristics of the urban land system and land surface temperature (LST) has received increasing attention in urban heat island and sustainability research, especially for desert cities. This research generally employs medium or coarser spatial resolution data and primarily focuses on the effects of a few classes of land-cover composition and pattern at the neighborhood or larger level using regression models. This study explores the effects of land system architecture—composition and configuration, both pattern and shape, of fine-grain land-cover classes—on LST of single family residential parcels in the Phoenix, Arizona (southwestern USA) metropolitan area. A 1 m resolution land-cover map is used to calculate land architecture metrics at the parcel level, and 6.8 m resolution MODIS/ASTER data are employed to retrieve LST. Linear mixed-effects models quantify the impacts of land configuration on LST at the parcel scale, controlling for the effects of land composition and neighborhood characteristics. Results indicate that parcel-level land-cover composition has the strongest association with daytime and nighttime LST, but the configuration of this cover, foremost compactness and concentration, also affects LST, with different associations between land architecture and LST at nighttime and daytime. Given information on land system architecture at the parcel level, additional information based on geographic and socioeconomic variables does not improve the generalization capability of the statistical models. The results point the way towards parcel-level land-cover design that helps to mitigate the urban heat island effect for warm desert cities, although tradeoffs with other sustainability indicators must be considered.

This study seeks to determine the role of land architecture—the composition and configuration of land cover—as well as cadastral/demographic/economic factors on land surface temperature (LST) and the surface urban heat island effect of Phoenix, Arizona. It employs 1 m National Agricultural Imagery Program data of land-cover with 120mLandsat-derived land surface temperature, decomposed to 30 m, a new measure of configuration, the normalized moment of inertia, and U.S. Census data to address the question for two randomly selected samples comprising 523 and 545 residential neighborhoods (census blocks) in the city. The results indicate that, contrary to most other studies, land configuration has a stronger influence on LST than land composition. In addition, both land configuration and architecture combined with cadastral, demographic, and economic variables, capture a significant amount of explained variance in LST. The results indicate that attention to land architecture in the development of or reshaping of neighborhoods may ameliorate the summer extremes in LST.

We investigated the spatial and temporal variation in June mean minimum temperatures for weather stations in and around metropolitan Phoenix, USA, for the period 1990 to 2004. Temperature was related to synoptic conditions, location in urban development zones (DZs), and the pace of housing construction in a 1 km buffer around fixed-point temperature stations. June is typically clear and calm, and dominated by a dry, tropical air mass with little change in minimum temperature from day to day. However, a dry, moderate weather type accounted for a large portion of the inter-annual variability in mean monthly minimum temperature. Significant temperature variation was explained by surface effects captured by the type of urban DZ, which ranged from urban core and infill sites, to desert and agricultural fringe locations, to exurban. An overall spatial urban effect, derived from the June monthly mean minimum temperature, is in the order of 2 to 4 K. The cumulative housing build-up around weather sites in the region was significant and resulted in average increases of 1.4 K per 1000 home completions, with a standard error of 0.4 K. Overall, minimum temperatures were spatially and temporally accounted for by variations in weather type, type of urban DZ (higher in core and infill), and the number of home completions over the period. Results compare favorably with the magnitude of heating by residential development cited by researchers using differing methodologies in other urban areas.

The electric transportation (ET) and electric vehicle (EV) landscape is currently inequitable and inaccessible for many living in the Phoenix area. This is especially true for people without single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs), who are reliant on public transit, or do not live in the Metropolitan center. Transit is intricately related to the environment and, due to societal and political structures, most of these environmental injustices are concentrated in low-income and minority communities. The lack of political representation within these communities has led to increased exposure to a variety of issues. Equitable transportation has also suffered due to a significant gap in addressing the needs of these underserved communities (Bolin, et al., 2005). The concentration of inequities and environmental injustices is a direct result of the lack of representation. Therefore, equitable and inclusive collaboration on solutions is required in order to maintain fairness and access, (Clement, 2020) considering the legacy of institutional harm within historically marginalized communities. The TE Activator was created by Salt River Project (SRP) and Anthesis Group, a sustainability consulting agency. The Activator is a group of Phoenix-area organizations interested in shaping the ET landscape to positively influence the well-being of Arizonans. With this in mind, they have asked our team to focus on making the transition to electric transportation equitable and inclusive. Our report details the current state of electric transportation nationally and locally, analyzes equitable EV/ET programs and utility plans across the country, and reviews the City of Tempe’s electric transportation related efforts. For this, we conducted listening sessions with a national expert, the City of Tempe, Tempe Community Action Agency, and CHISPA, creating a Community Listening Pilot Project based on the preliminary listening sessions. Through our research, listening, and discussions we compiled tiered recommendations for the TE Activator that suggest systemic policy changes based on community priorities. Accompanying the report is an Equity Roadmap, Community Listening Script, and one-page Debrief.

The electric transportation (ET) and electric vehicle (EV) landscape is currently inequitable and inaccessible for many living in the Phoenix area. This is especially true for people without single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs), who are reliant on public transit, or do not live in the Metropolitan center. Transit is intricately related to the environment and, due to societal and political structures, most of these environmental injustices are concentrated in low-income and minority communities. The lack of political representation within these communities has led to increased exposure to a variety of issues. Equitable transportation has also suffered due to a significant gap in addressing the needs of these underserved communities (Bolin, et al., 2005). The concentration of inequities and environmental injustices is a direct result of the lack of representation. Therefore, equitable and inclusive collaboration on solutions is required in order to maintain fairness and access, (Clement, 2020) considering the legacy of institutional harm within historically marginalized communities. The TE Activator was created by Salt River Project (SRP) and Anthesis Group, a sustainability consulting agency. The Activator is a group of Phoenix-area organizations interested in shaping the ET landscape to positively influence the well-being of Arizonans. With this in mind, they have asked our team to focus on making the transition to electric transportation equitable and inclusive. Our report details the current state of electric transportation nationally and locally, analyzes equitable EV/ET programs and utility plans across the country, and reviews the City of Tempe’s electric transportation related efforts. For this, we conducted listening sessions with a national expert, the City of Tempe, Tempe Community Action Agency, and CHISPA, creating a Community Listening Pilot Project based on the preliminary listening sessions. Through our research, listening, and discussions we compiled tiered recommendations for the TE Activator that suggest systemic policy changes based on community priorities. Accompanying the report is an Equity Roadmap, Community Listening Script, and one-page Debrief.

The electric transportation (ET) and electric vehicle (EV) landscape is currently inequitable and inaccessible for many living in the Phoenix area. This is especially true for people without single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs), who are reliant on public transit, or do not live in the Metropolitan center. Transit is intricately related to the environment and, due to societal and political structures, most of these environmental injustices are concentrated in low-income and minority communities. The lack of political representation within these communities has led to increased exposure to a variety of issues. Equitable transportation has also suffered due to a significant gap in addressing the needs of these underserved communities (Bolin, et al., 2005). The concentration of inequities and environmental injustices is a direct result of the lack of representation. Therefore, equitable and inclusive collaboration on solutions is required in order to maintain fairness and access, (Clement, 2020) considering the legacy of institutional harm within historically marginalized communities. The TE Activator was created by Salt River Project (SRP) and Anthesis Group, a sustainability consulting agency. The Activator is a group of Phoenix-area organizations interested in shaping the ET landscape to positively influence the well-being of Arizonans. With this in mind, they have asked our team to focus on making the transition to electric transportation equitable and inclusive. Our report details the current state of electric transportation nationally and locally, analyzes equitable EV/ET programs and utility plans across the country, and reviews the City of Tempe’s electric transportation related efforts. For this, we conducted listening sessions with a national expert, the City of Tempe, Tempe Community Action Agency, and CHISPA, creating a Community Listening Pilot Project based on the preliminary listening sessions. Through our research, listening, and discussions we compiled tiered recommendations for the TE Activator that suggest systemic policy changes based on community priorities. Accompanying the report is an Equity Roadmap, Community Listening Script, and one-page Debrief.