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.

Agricultural and dairy work is among the most dangerous work in the US. In addition to the dangers of work, undocumented migrant workers may face additional stress as a result of the increase in antiimmigration enforcement and criminalization of undocumented status. The purpose of the study was to better understand how migrant dairy workers were impacted by the increase in restrictive immigration policies and immigration enforcement, as well as how they coped with any issues they faced. Interviews were conducted with fourteen migrant dairy workers following the passage of several anti-immigration bills across the US. Findings revealed four major categories; three were related to negative impacts of immigration policies and enforcement:

1. Fear.
2. Stress and anxiety.
3. Perceptions of discrimination.

An additional major category emerged that demonstrated the hope and resilience of participants in the face of an increasingly difficult socio-political environment. Implications for social service practice, policy, and research are discussed.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact of perceived discrimination among Latino immigrants in the context of recent immigration policies and immigration enforcement strategies. Data for this study were drawn from a pilot study (n=213) of adult Latino immigrants living in Arizona during the summer of 2014. The results of multivariate OLS linear regressions indicated greater perceived discrimination was significantly related to reporting:

1. Avoidance of immigration officials.
2. Family has suffered.
3. Friends have suffered.

In addition, greater perceived discrimination was significantly related to lower confidence in a better future for the individual, their families, their children, and the children of today.

Latinas may be unlikely to report violent crime, particularly when undocumented. This research examines the impact of fear of deportation and trust in the procedural fairness of the justice system on willingness to report violent crime victimization among a sample of Latinas (N = 1,049) in the United States. Fear of deportation was a significant predictor of Latinas perceptions of the procedural fairness of the criminal justice system. However, trust in the police is more important than fear of deportation in Latinas’ willingness to report violent crime victimization. Social workers can provide rights-based education and encourage relationship building between police and Latino communities.

This study examined the relationship between the fear of deportation and perceptions of law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and the willingness to report crimes among Latinos in the US. Understanding the relationship between increased immigration enforcement and fear of deportation may promote public safety by improving the relationship between the police and Latino communities.

Multivariate ordinal logistic regression analyses of the data found that participants who had a greater fear of deportation reported:

1. Less confidence that police would not use excessive force (p<.01).
2. Less confidence that police would treat Latinos fairly (p<.05).
3. A lower likelihood of reporting crimes (p<.05).
4. Less confidence that the courts would treat Latinos fairly (p<.01).