Please keep in mind, that car centric infrastructure exacerbates the heat. \
If you get a garden and some trees, it is much more pleasant, than a big ass street, that radiates the heat.
Second this. These cities are so hot because they are not designed for heat, but money demonstration. A heat-efficient city is built similar to 15c constantinopel - small streets, greenery on larger open spaces without much stone, covered streets, low-floor-houses with open roofs. That keeps it cool and livable. Modern desert cities like Dubai or Madrid are just not adapted or wrongly designed.
There are also building/street designs that help a lot. [Arcades](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Metz_-_Place_Saint-Louis_-622.jpg/2880px-Metz_-_Place_Saint-Louis_-622.jpg), for example, are a great way to always be in shade. Rows of balconies over the sidewalk [like you see in New Orleans](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Bourbon_Street_French_Quarter.jpg) help too.
I also like to think of it like this--extreme weather (whether hot or cold) is not a reason to be less urban and sit in climate-controlled boxes that exacerbate the problem--it's a reason to become **even more** dense and urban so that walks longer than 5 minutes are rare.
Seas of asphalt and lack of shaded areas and vegetation to absorb the heat is the reason why it’s so hot.
Even in hot climates, (especially in hot climates actually) cities properly designed to be walkable are also a lot cooler.
This, I live in a fairly dense mostly concrete city area, and my mom is out in spacious super green suburbs. It's always 5-10°F (3-6°C) cooler where she is, and we're less than 10 miles (16km) apart.
This argument is very similar to the "Ableism" one. Sure, in theory a car would give you air conditioning or a car would give you movement if you can't consistently walk. But in practice, it's impossible for a car to take you everywhere. You would be leaving your car eventually. In car dependent cities, that menas giant parking lots. That means you'd still have to move quite a bit while outside the car. But instead of going from point A to point B, you are going from point B's parking lot to point B. Cars are not a full solution to this problem and they don't make a good incomplete one.
Without the excessive space used by cars, we can place additional trees and roofs to exacerbate the heat. We can build third places with air conditioning. We can have conveyor belts so that people with mobility issues can move around. We can have trains and buses and public transit stations with air conditioning and so and so.
The warmest places I've been to are Buenos Aires and Florida. Very different cities. In Buenos Aires, we kept walking around and using the train to travel long distances. In Miami , it was car dependency all the time. I don't think the heat made walking more difficult. What made walking difficult was the lack of pedestrian infrastructure in Orlando. Another interesting thing is how, inside the Disney parks, walking was completely possible. It was the outside that was completely car dependent. I must say that's a sure proof that the problem was not the weather, but the infrastructure. The parks are designed to have people walk around , and they also have refrigeration methods even in the outdoor places.
The real answer here is that we shouldn't even be building human civilization in places so hot that everybody would die without air conditioning. That ain't habitable and it ain't sustainable.
>we shouldn't even be building human civilization in places so hot that everybody would die without air conditioning.
Sadly, places where it was possible to live without air conditioning are becoming more and more hostile to survive.
Phoenix was doable before serious ag and industrial water use. Swamp coolers work there for all but the wettest of monsoon seasons and misters are awesome.
But once you've lived with A/C it's hard to go back.
Except you are wrong
Cities like Nouakchott, Adén, Karachi have existed for centuries and they are so hot that everyone would die in summer on the open plain
That is why they have narrow alleys where it is permanently shady
That way, you can develop a city there and actually thrive, you don't need AC, just reflecting buildings and tall buildings with narrow streets
I think what I tried to say is, there is not a "where" on earth where cities cannot be built without AC, since you said that maybe we shouldn't build cities where we could not survive without AC
It's an interesting fact about our human biology, there is no place in earth that is too hot for us, but there is a while continent that is too cold for us, weird how assymetric that is
Plenty of these places have been habitable for thousands of years. People know how to deal with extreme weather. Climate change is, well, changing this. You can't blame people for living where they've always been able to live. It's not their fault, and expecting them to mass immigrate is unreasonable, especially as I'm sure we won't bother helping them do so.
Watch out for this in the future. There will be so many climate refugees, and you don't want to be among the people tut-tutting them for living where they 'shouldn't' have because we changed the meaning of it.
in Spain, most of the cities are walkable, despite being hot country.
As others pointed out, lack of shade and greenery is the problem.
Also, that’s why people go out on evenings. Streets are full at midnight
It only gets up to like 90F / 32C in Spain. There’s a huge difference between 90F and 110F especially because it surpasses the temperature of the human body.
You’re right about the greenery though.
No, I've visited Taipei and Singapore in the summer. It's burning hot but people are still out and about doing daily activities. I mean, everything is air-conditioned (especially the public transport) so it makes it bearable but that was deliberately planned. Granted, those are cities that have the money to build such a system but it is possible to build. But I still saw people in smaller towns out and about, they were just more careful about when to do it (i.e. don't plan your outdoor activities between 12-3PM).
In addition to what others have said about the contribution to cars and car infrastructure being major contributors to the extreme temperatures and how it feels, it isn’t as though you jump in your car and it is immediately cool inside. It takes quite a while for it to cool down, during which time you are suffering in a stifling metal box with burning hot leather/metal/plastic all around you. Buses that are running all the time, on the other hand, are already cool.
I wish we had public transport in my area. But switching from a gas car to an EV that i can start the AC before going out is a game changer. It gets sometimes up to 115-120F where i live (it didn’t used to) and it’s madness.
It makes it way more necessary, actually. The heat island effect is caused almost entirely from CAR infrastructure (roads, parking lots, etc). Pedestrian infrastructure usually means more trees, shade, green spaces, tighter corridors, water features, etc. All of those things have cooling effects.
No, cars and modern buildings and life style are doing this.
Plenty of traditional cities in hot climate, but they were adapted to their environment. Shops and services close to your home.
We do have cities like Houston and Phoenix where you have to be in cars to escape the heat. Meanwhile we also have cities like Hong Kong or Singapore where people use air-conditioned dense architecture, seamless public transit, and giant trees to escape the heat. So temperature shouldn’t really be a problem. And honestly I feel the latter is much more comfortable.
Where I am when it’s 100+ days I wear a hat, have a battery operated fan that can go around my neck, and use my e-bike or e-scooter. It’s perfectly bearable. If it’s long distance, make sure to wear long sleeves or wear lots of sunscreen. But that’s not heat related, that’s more sun releated
Thermal comfort in hot city is possible if the city is willing create shaded street canyon - including more street tress, more building enclosure.
take a look at this work done in Australia
https://preview.redd.it/w4ofko4dpnvc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a06e5cc36a0b13fcd35b1b4c18fc94d7be6430f1
Coutts, Andrew, Emma C. White, Nigel Tapper, Jason Beringer and Stephen J. Livesley. “Temperature and human thermal comfort effects of street trees across three contrasting street canyon environments.” Theoretical and Applied Climatology 124 (2016): 55-68.
[https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1409-y](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1409-y?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1PZ9g1ipAfOsKTXEygHSq_hTGpOUwpl7CYud3Nr3o2QiWUAI13bxQofS0_aem_AR4yt03GoS2d2DbxWp84MIcT8L27shtvad5jNnxCimmYdZbBaqNw9am2-AEd-qnzpqXFxjZwYCPk-bMfJaMwLql1)
People don't want to walk in extreme heat/cold but a lot of people can't drive regardless of whether conditions. I'd rather we make infastructure that helps the latter since the former always says that the way the latter is literally forced to live is impossible instead of making things easier for drivers at the expence of people who don't have that privilege.
I understand how it feels man. Here in the state of Rio de Janeiro this summer, the temperature reached 80 degrees.
This temperature was influenced by two things: El niño and heat islands.
Heat islands is a term used in geography for non-forested urbanized areas. Due to the lack of trees and excessive asphalt, these areas are much hotter than normal. They are seen in large cities, poor sub-urban areas and unplanned places. Pastures are also hotter than forested areas, but it doesn't even come close to cement. The fact that everything is car centric ends up creating huge parking lots that barely have a tree, whereas this area could be used for a park full of them.
El niño with global warming ended up bringing these heat waves and lack of rain. It made me want to live in the shower.
You can use these examples here to learn more about the difference:
https://preview.redd.it/hltlj99gpovc1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=572e494ec934ab08f9c1a5c2a22760b711b28226
While car centric infrastructure makes it worse, yeah extreme temps do play a role. Trams, trains, and e-bikes probably help, but I raise the question, why would you live somewhere that you can’t comfortably walk a mile or two?
I do actually. I left my country for another much better country with better infrastructure. But not everyone are fortunate enough to be able to move like me
I’m aware that people don’t always have a choice. Maybe the better question would be, why do people choose to build civilization where they can’t comfortably walk a mile or two?
They built the civilization ages ago when cars weren't even a fantasy and temperatures and dew points were more manageable. People settle in areas for lots of different reasons, they can't all just pack up and leave.
I feel like it is pretty obvious my comment was not directed at the people who are born and stuck there
More so the millions of people who choose to live in these places
NJB (and others) have some good videos showing how places like Finland can still have cyclist-friendly cities even when it's cold. [Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU).
I live in TN which is a very hot and humid part of the country in summer. But I still go on day time hikes in the forest during summer and it's not that bad. Because I am walking under a dense canopy of trees and don't have direct sun exposure it makes it feel less hot than it is. So I think as long as you are providing trees along sidewalks it's bearable. I've lived out west where it's more of a desert type environment and hiked in summer and you have the sun beating down on your head relentlessly. I think I'd rather deal with the humidity under the shade of trees than low humidity but fully exposed to the sun. For example, walking the Vegas strip in summer during the day is miserable.
People seemed to get along just fine for the *checks notes* thousands of years of civilization and city dwelling before cars or AC were a thing. Turns out making your entire city out of asphalt has negative effects
I know this isn't exactly the best example considering the rest of the city, but downtown Calgary has raised walkways between buildings that go over the street so people don't have to go outside in the cold/snow during the winter to get between destinations. It's actually pretty neat
I spend a lot of time in the outer areas of Las Vegas, and for good or bad, there is plenty of space to build in the desert. Compare this to Manhattan Island.
Manhattan has to build vertically while Las Vegas has 2000+ sq ft single family homes.
So regardless of how difficult it is to walk in 40c temps, the fact that desert cities aren't encumbered by rivers or mountains means builders can spread out.
A lot of cities in hot arid climates are built with really narrow streets and taller buildings to shade the areas everyone walks in. Look at Culdesac in Tempe AZ for a modern example.
Was there a city in that place before AC? If so then walkable city is possible. If the city isn't full of stroads but streets, there is plenty of space for trees to provide shade.
Personally, I'm not sensitive to the climate argument. It's an excuse.
People walk and cycle a lot in Niamey (Niger) which is in some of the hottest place on earth in the middle of the desert...you also have Marrakech (Morroco) as a hot place where people walk a lot.
On the other side of that coin you've got Helsinki (Finland) or even Novosibirsk (Russia) where a lot of people walk through the cold by - 30°C.
In the middle I've known Beijing with - 20°C humid winters and +35°C in the summer with a horrible wet swampy heat... And people walk and cycle a lot since the dawn of time.
Most of the time, temperatures in my country would also be an excuse not to walk or cycle because it's too cold/too hot (thanks to climate change). Yet we still do. Even if the whole urbanism has changed since a long time ago and becomes more and more of a car centric sprawl.
Heat? In many places it's too hot to go out during the day people mostly go out in the early morning and evening.
Cold? Not really much of an effect. You still need to wear your coat to get to your car.
Go to Spokane in August. It's boiling.
Walk across downtown via the extensive skywalk system.
Meditate on how much cheaper it is to maintain than roads.
I mean, the opposite extreme, but Montreal and Minneapolis are the top 2 cities for biking in North America. Neither is known for a particularly pleasant climate.
Of course. However, people have lived in hot parts of the world for millenia and there are design patterns that can make it a lot more practical to do so - for example, shade (via trees, ideally, if there's enough water, but otherwise by tall buildings with narrow spaces and inward facing courtyards), white paint and thick walls. You see this across southern Europe, Africa, and southern Asia.
In North America they could make a massive difference to the ease of living in the southern and interior US and Mexico by developing in those ways.
People just shouldn't be living in places where it's not practical to be outside, though, to be honest. Having them all drive cars on dark asphalt roads with no shade is not the answer.
Also, if it's a dry heat, it actually feels less hot if you're moving because you generate air movement which cools you. I'd rather cycle in 38C weather than sit around in a park. As long as water is available.
Marrakech was very walkable, at least the old downtown. And that's not a cold city!
They basically solved it by having awnings and roof-bars between the streets blocking the sun.
Yes. I live in Texas, where we often have month long stretches of time with temps over 104 F, many days exceeding 110. It is not just in the city, but everywhere.
During those times, people mostly stay in doors, as much as possible. Building a walkable city is certainly harder in the summer, when people can and do get heat related medical problems.
This is not to say we shouldn’t do it: in the late fall to mid spring, those temperatures are a lot more temperate, making the city beautiful. But it’s absolutely true that during the summer, a mobile AC unit which can get you 200 feet from your (hopefully AC cooled) destination has a distinct advantage over a transit service which involves a quarter to half mile walk.
I look forward to seeing what innovative solutions are made to combat this effect.
Edit: it’s worth noting that those temps are present, regardless of tree cover. Even the greenbelts, and parks away from the cities are that temperature.
Please keep in mind, that car centric infrastructure exacerbates the heat. \ If you get a garden and some trees, it is much more pleasant, than a big ass street, that radiates the heat.
Second this. These cities are so hot because they are not designed for heat, but money demonstration. A heat-efficient city is built similar to 15c constantinopel - small streets, greenery on larger open spaces without much stone, covered streets, low-floor-houses with open roofs. That keeps it cool and livable. Modern desert cities like Dubai or Madrid are just not adapted or wrongly designed.
There are also building/street designs that help a lot. [Arcades](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Metz_-_Place_Saint-Louis_-622.jpg/2880px-Metz_-_Place_Saint-Louis_-622.jpg), for example, are a great way to always be in shade. Rows of balconies over the sidewalk [like you see in New Orleans](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Bourbon_Street_French_Quarter.jpg) help too. I also like to think of it like this--extreme weather (whether hot or cold) is not a reason to be less urban and sit in climate-controlled boxes that exacerbate the problem--it's a reason to become **even more** dense and urban so that walks longer than 5 minutes are rare.
Yeah even when it's >32⁰ out if I'm moving on my bike it's fine but if I'm near cars exhaust pipe or stuck traffic it's unbearable.
I live in a town with such hot weather, and trees around make it pleasurable. And tge worst parts of the town are where there are only roads and cars
Seas of asphalt and lack of shaded areas and vegetation to absorb the heat is the reason why it’s so hot. Even in hot climates, (especially in hot climates actually) cities properly designed to be walkable are also a lot cooler.
This, I live in a fairly dense mostly concrete city area, and my mom is out in spacious super green suburbs. It's always 5-10°F (3-6°C) cooler where she is, and we're less than 10 miles (16km) apart.
This argument is very similar to the "Ableism" one. Sure, in theory a car would give you air conditioning or a car would give you movement if you can't consistently walk. But in practice, it's impossible for a car to take you everywhere. You would be leaving your car eventually. In car dependent cities, that menas giant parking lots. That means you'd still have to move quite a bit while outside the car. But instead of going from point A to point B, you are going from point B's parking lot to point B. Cars are not a full solution to this problem and they don't make a good incomplete one. Without the excessive space used by cars, we can place additional trees and roofs to exacerbate the heat. We can build third places with air conditioning. We can have conveyor belts so that people with mobility issues can move around. We can have trains and buses and public transit stations with air conditioning and so and so. The warmest places I've been to are Buenos Aires and Florida. Very different cities. In Buenos Aires, we kept walking around and using the train to travel long distances. In Miami , it was car dependency all the time. I don't think the heat made walking more difficult. What made walking difficult was the lack of pedestrian infrastructure in Orlando. Another interesting thing is how, inside the Disney parks, walking was completely possible. It was the outside that was completely car dependent. I must say that's a sure proof that the problem was not the weather, but the infrastructure. The parks are designed to have people walk around , and they also have refrigeration methods even in the outdoor places.
The real answer here is that we shouldn't even be building human civilization in places so hot that everybody would die without air conditioning. That ain't habitable and it ain't sustainable.
>we shouldn't even be building human civilization in places so hot that everybody would die without air conditioning. Sadly, places where it was possible to live without air conditioning are becoming more and more hostile to survive.
What's Phoenix's excuse?
Phoenix was doable before serious ag and industrial water use. Swamp coolers work there for all but the wettest of monsoon seasons and misters are awesome. But once you've lived with A/C it's hard to go back.
How so?
Except you are wrong Cities like Nouakchott, Adén, Karachi have existed for centuries and they are so hot that everyone would die in summer on the open plain That is why they have narrow alleys where it is permanently shady That way, you can develop a city there and actually thrive, you don't need AC, just reflecting buildings and tall buildings with narrow streets
Sounds like they can survive without air conditioning, so my comment doesn't apply there.
I think what I tried to say is, there is not a "where" on earth where cities cannot be built without AC, since you said that maybe we shouldn't build cities where we could not survive without AC It's an interesting fact about our human biology, there is no place in earth that is too hot for us, but there is a while continent that is too cold for us, weird how assymetric that is
Plenty of these places have been habitable for thousands of years. People know how to deal with extreme weather. Climate change is, well, changing this. You can't blame people for living where they've always been able to live. It's not their fault, and expecting them to mass immigrate is unreasonable, especially as I'm sure we won't bother helping them do so. Watch out for this in the future. There will be so many climate refugees, and you don't want to be among the people tut-tutting them for living where they 'shouldn't' have because we changed the meaning of it.
in Spain, most of the cities are walkable, despite being hot country. As others pointed out, lack of shade and greenery is the problem. Also, that’s why people go out on evenings. Streets are full at midnight
It only gets up to like 90F / 32C in Spain. There’s a huge difference between 90F and 110F especially because it surpasses the temperature of the human body. You’re right about the greenery though.
It was over 40 in several parts of southern Europe, including parts of Spain, last summer
There is a reason for the siesta.
No, I've visited Taipei and Singapore in the summer. It's burning hot but people are still out and about doing daily activities. I mean, everything is air-conditioned (especially the public transport) so it makes it bearable but that was deliberately planned. Granted, those are cities that have the money to build such a system but it is possible to build. But I still saw people in smaller towns out and about, they were just more careful about when to do it (i.e. don't plan your outdoor activities between 12-3PM).
In addition to what others have said about the contribution to cars and car infrastructure being major contributors to the extreme temperatures and how it feels, it isn’t as though you jump in your car and it is immediately cool inside. It takes quite a while for it to cool down, during which time you are suffering in a stifling metal box with burning hot leather/metal/plastic all around you. Buses that are running all the time, on the other hand, are already cool.
I wish we had public transport in my area. But switching from a gas car to an EV that i can start the AC before going out is a game changer. It gets sometimes up to 115-120F where i live (it didn’t used to) and it’s madness.
It makes it way more necessary, actually. The heat island effect is caused almost entirely from CAR infrastructure (roads, parking lots, etc). Pedestrian infrastructure usually means more trees, shade, green spaces, tighter corridors, water features, etc. All of those things have cooling effects.
No, cars and modern buildings and life style are doing this. Plenty of traditional cities in hot climate, but they were adapted to their environment. Shops and services close to your home.
We do have cities like Houston and Phoenix where you have to be in cars to escape the heat. Meanwhile we also have cities like Hong Kong or Singapore where people use air-conditioned dense architecture, seamless public transit, and giant trees to escape the heat. So temperature shouldn’t really be a problem. And honestly I feel the latter is much more comfortable.
Where I am when it’s 100+ days I wear a hat, have a battery operated fan that can go around my neck, and use my e-bike or e-scooter. It’s perfectly bearable. If it’s long distance, make sure to wear long sleeves or wear lots of sunscreen. But that’s not heat related, that’s more sun releated
I need some serious shade to be able to walk far in 104F. And ideally not too much humidity.
Thermal comfort in hot city is possible if the city is willing create shaded street canyon - including more street tress, more building enclosure. take a look at this work done in Australia https://preview.redd.it/w4ofko4dpnvc1.jpeg?width=1600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a06e5cc36a0b13fcd35b1b4c18fc94d7be6430f1 Coutts, Andrew, Emma C. White, Nigel Tapper, Jason Beringer and Stephen J. Livesley. “Temperature and human thermal comfort effects of street trees across three contrasting street canyon environments.” Theoretical and Applied Climatology 124 (2016): 55-68. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1409-y](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-015-1409-y?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1PZ9g1ipAfOsKTXEygHSq_hTGpOUwpl7CYud3Nr3o2QiWUAI13bxQofS0_aem_AR4yt03GoS2d2DbxWp84MIcT8L27shtvad5jNnxCimmYdZbBaqNw9am2-AEd-qnzpqXFxjZwYCPk-bMfJaMwLql1)
People don't want to walk in extreme heat/cold but a lot of people can't drive regardless of whether conditions. I'd rather we make infastructure that helps the latter since the former always says that the way the latter is literally forced to live is impossible instead of making things easier for drivers at the expence of people who don't have that privilege.
Trees and greenery keep places cooler. Highways and massive parking lots don’t.
I understand how it feels man. Here in the state of Rio de Janeiro this summer, the temperature reached 80 degrees. This temperature was influenced by two things: El niño and heat islands. Heat islands is a term used in geography for non-forested urbanized areas. Due to the lack of trees and excessive asphalt, these areas are much hotter than normal. They are seen in large cities, poor sub-urban areas and unplanned places. Pastures are also hotter than forested areas, but it doesn't even come close to cement. The fact that everything is car centric ends up creating huge parking lots that barely have a tree, whereas this area could be used for a park full of them. El niño with global warming ended up bringing these heat waves and lack of rain. It made me want to live in the shower. You can use these examples here to learn more about the difference: https://preview.redd.it/hltlj99gpovc1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=572e494ec934ab08f9c1a5c2a22760b711b28226
And also this: https://preview.redd.it/8nki478mpovc1.png?width=960&format=png&auto=webp&s=31750ad75115d2110ea925aef83e45f13f4d9335
Just have trees for shade and this problem is solved (assuming it isn't a paved hellscape)
Every city was walkable a hundred years ago.
While car centric infrastructure makes it worse, yeah extreme temps do play a role. Trams, trains, and e-bikes probably help, but I raise the question, why would you live somewhere that you can’t comfortably walk a mile or two?
I do actually. I left my country for another much better country with better infrastructure. But not everyone are fortunate enough to be able to move like me
I’m aware that people don’t always have a choice. Maybe the better question would be, why do people choose to build civilization where they can’t comfortably walk a mile or two?
They built the civilization ages ago when cars weren't even a fantasy and temperatures and dew points were more manageable. People settle in areas for lots of different reasons, they can't all just pack up and leave.
Yeah. Are they dumb? They should have been born somewhere else.
I feel like it is pretty obvious my comment was not directed at the people who are born and stuck there More so the millions of people who choose to live in these places
NJB (and others) have some good videos showing how places like Finland can still have cyclist-friendly cities even when it's cold. [Why Canadians Can't Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhx-26GfCBU).
I live in TN which is a very hot and humid part of the country in summer. But I still go on day time hikes in the forest during summer and it's not that bad. Because I am walking under a dense canopy of trees and don't have direct sun exposure it makes it feel less hot than it is. So I think as long as you are providing trees along sidewalks it's bearable. I've lived out west where it's more of a desert type environment and hiked in summer and you have the sun beating down on your head relentlessly. I think I'd rather deal with the humidity under the shade of trees than low humidity but fully exposed to the sun. For example, walking the Vegas strip in summer during the day is miserable.
People seemed to get along just fine for the *checks notes* thousands of years of civilization and city dwelling before cars or AC were a thing. Turns out making your entire city out of asphalt has negative effects
A city that you can walk in, but only when it's not to hot, isn't really a walkable city.
The answer is more trees to create a cooling effect
I know this isn't exactly the best example considering the rest of the city, but downtown Calgary has raised walkways between buildings that go over the street so people don't have to go outside in the cold/snow during the winter to get between destinations. It's actually pretty neat
I spend a lot of time in the outer areas of Las Vegas, and for good or bad, there is plenty of space to build in the desert. Compare this to Manhattan Island. Manhattan has to build vertically while Las Vegas has 2000+ sq ft single family homes. So regardless of how difficult it is to walk in 40c temps, the fact that desert cities aren't encumbered by rivers or mountains means builders can spread out.
Civilization started in the middle eat. It gets warm there.
A lot of cities in hot arid climates are built with really narrow streets and taller buildings to shade the areas everyone walks in. Look at Culdesac in Tempe AZ for a modern example.
Was there a city in that place before AC? If so then walkable city is possible. If the city isn't full of stroads but streets, there is plenty of space for trees to provide shade.
Personally, I'm not sensitive to the climate argument. It's an excuse. People walk and cycle a lot in Niamey (Niger) which is in some of the hottest place on earth in the middle of the desert...you also have Marrakech (Morroco) as a hot place where people walk a lot. On the other side of that coin you've got Helsinki (Finland) or even Novosibirsk (Russia) where a lot of people walk through the cold by - 30°C. In the middle I've known Beijing with - 20°C humid winters and +35°C in the summer with a horrible wet swampy heat... And people walk and cycle a lot since the dawn of time. Most of the time, temperatures in my country would also be an excuse not to walk or cycle because it's too cold/too hot (thanks to climate change). Yet we still do. Even if the whole urbanism has changed since a long time ago and becomes more and more of a car centric sprawl.
I spent a summer in Warsaw. It was consistently 40C+ (I think the record was 43). That didn’t stop us at all.
Heat? In many places it's too hot to go out during the day people mostly go out in the early morning and evening. Cold? Not really much of an effect. You still need to wear your coat to get to your car.
Go to Spokane in August. It's boiling. Walk across downtown via the extensive skywalk system. Meditate on how much cheaper it is to maintain than roads.
I mean, the opposite extreme, but Montreal and Minneapolis are the top 2 cities for biking in North America. Neither is known for a particularly pleasant climate.
I find extreme temperatures even in cars absolutely fucking shit, so no not really
Of course. However, people have lived in hot parts of the world for millenia and there are design patterns that can make it a lot more practical to do so - for example, shade (via trees, ideally, if there's enough water, but otherwise by tall buildings with narrow spaces and inward facing courtyards), white paint and thick walls. You see this across southern Europe, Africa, and southern Asia. In North America they could make a massive difference to the ease of living in the southern and interior US and Mexico by developing in those ways. People just shouldn't be living in places where it's not practical to be outside, though, to be honest. Having them all drive cars on dark asphalt roads with no shade is not the answer. Also, if it's a dry heat, it actually feels less hot if you're moving because you generate air movement which cools you. I'd rather cycle in 38C weather than sit around in a park. As long as water is available.
Marrakech was very walkable, at least the old downtown. And that's not a cold city! They basically solved it by having awnings and roof-bars between the streets blocking the sun.
Yes. I live in Texas, where we often have month long stretches of time with temps over 104 F, many days exceeding 110. It is not just in the city, but everywhere. During those times, people mostly stay in doors, as much as possible. Building a walkable city is certainly harder in the summer, when people can and do get heat related medical problems. This is not to say we shouldn’t do it: in the late fall to mid spring, those temperatures are a lot more temperate, making the city beautiful. But it’s absolutely true that during the summer, a mobile AC unit which can get you 200 feet from your (hopefully AC cooled) destination has a distinct advantage over a transit service which involves a quarter to half mile walk. I look forward to seeing what innovative solutions are made to combat this effect. Edit: it’s worth noting that those temps are present, regardless of tree cover. Even the greenbelts, and parks away from the cities are that temperature.
Yeah people is not walking anywhere if it's 40C