TY - JOUR
T1 - Household accessibility to heat refuges
T2 - Residential air conditioning, public cooled space, and walkability
AU - Fraser, Andrew
AU - Chester, Mikhail
AU - Eisenman, David
AU - Hondula, David
AU - Pincetl, Stephanie S.
AU - English, Paul
AU - Bondank, Emily
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The National Science Foundation (grant numbers IMEE 1335556, IMEE 1335640, RIPS 1441352, SRN 1444755) and the National Transportation Center—University of Maryland (Project NTC2015-SU-R-01).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016.
PY - 2017/11/1
Y1 - 2017/11/1
N2 - Access to air conditioned space is critical for protecting urban populations from the adverse effects of heat exposure. Yet there remains fairly limited knowledge of the penetration of private (home air conditioning) and distribution of public (cooling centers and commercial space) cooled space across cities. Furthermore, the deployment of government-sponsored cooling centers is likely to be inadequately informed with respect to the location of existing cooling resources (residential air conditioning and air conditioned public space), raising questions of the equitability of access to heat refuges. We explore the distribution of private and public cooling resources and access inequities at the household level in two major US urban areas: Los Angeles County, California and Maricopa County, Arizona (whose county seat is Phoenix). We evaluate the presence of in-home air conditioning and develop a walking-based accessibility measure to air conditioned public space using a combined cumulative opportunities-gravity approach. We find significant variations in the distribution of residential air conditioning across both regions which are largely attributable to building age and inter/intra-regional climate differences. There are also regional disparities in walkable access to public cooled space. At average walking speeds, we find that official cooling centers are only accessible to a small fraction of households (3% in Los Angeles, 2% in Maricopa) while a significantly higher number of households (80% in Los Angeles, 39% in Maricopa) have access to at least one other type of public cooling resource such as a library or commercial establishment. Aggregated to a neighborhood level, we find that there are areas within each region where access to cooled space (either public or private) is limited which may increase heat-related health risks.
AB - Access to air conditioned space is critical for protecting urban populations from the adverse effects of heat exposure. Yet there remains fairly limited knowledge of the penetration of private (home air conditioning) and distribution of public (cooling centers and commercial space) cooled space across cities. Furthermore, the deployment of government-sponsored cooling centers is likely to be inadequately informed with respect to the location of existing cooling resources (residential air conditioning and air conditioned public space), raising questions of the equitability of access to heat refuges. We explore the distribution of private and public cooling resources and access inequities at the household level in two major US urban areas: Los Angeles County, California and Maricopa County, Arizona (whose county seat is Phoenix). We evaluate the presence of in-home air conditioning and develop a walking-based accessibility measure to air conditioned public space using a combined cumulative opportunities-gravity approach. We find significant variations in the distribution of residential air conditioning across both regions which are largely attributable to building age and inter/intra-regional climate differences. There are also regional disparities in walkable access to public cooled space. At average walking speeds, we find that official cooling centers are only accessible to a small fraction of households (3% in Los Angeles, 2% in Maricopa) while a significantly higher number of households (80% in Los Angeles, 39% in Maricopa) have access to at least one other type of public cooling resource such as a library or commercial establishment. Aggregated to a neighborhood level, we find that there are areas within each region where access to cooled space (either public or private) is limited which may increase heat-related health risks.
KW - Accessibility
KW - climate change
KW - extreme heat
KW - walkability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85033439386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85033439386&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0265813516657342
DO - 10.1177/0265813516657342
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85033439386
SN - 2399-8083
VL - 44
SP - 1036
EP - 1055
JO - Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
JF - Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
IS - 6
ER -