Urban Heat

A More Breathable Raleigh: Muggy, but Not Miserable

Raleigh in the future will be hotter, and we’ll need to find new ways to deal with extreme heat. JoAnna Klein spoke with Celen Pasalar, Steve Frank and Ginger Krieg Dosier about how smart urban design, borrowing ideas from history, planting trees, adopting innovative technology and reimagining what we think defines a city can help us thrive in a warmer world.

“In the past, I think there was more consciousness … with the green infrastructure around us. And as all these things were taken out, we ended up with these bare, hard surfaces that are now challenging us.”

– Celen Pasalar, A More Breathable Raleigh: Muggy, but Not Miserable

Future Scenarios: Get Green Initiative and Project Cool

In 2025, climatologists warned that if humanity didn’t lower carbon emissions, North Carolina’s climate would resemble that of New Orleans or Florida by the year 2100. It would be up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer and incredibly humid. This heat would be even more extreme in cities due to the urban heat island effect, where dark, paved surfaces and sparse greenery trap and hold heat. With increased days and nights of this extreme, sometimes fatal, heat, people could spend more time indoors, isolated, lonely and sedentary. Health risks, energy demand and cooling costs would amplify, especially for vulnerable groups, like pregnant women, the elderly, children, homeless and the poor. Increasing city populations would be at great risk. 

Fortunately, in the years leading up to the 22nd century, cities in the Triangle came together to launch the Get Green Initiative and Project Cool. Get Green projects focused on increasing indoor and outdoor trees and other vegetation throughout the city to absorb heat, provide shade, reduce pollution and promote healthy indoor aerobiomes. Project Cool programs focused on promoting passive building design for new development, installing shade canopies and applying new materials on roads to reduce heat absorption and promote ventilation, thereby reducing reliance on air conditioning, decreasing energy demand and promoting healthy outdoor lifestyles. 

Over decades of growth, these programs worked to keep temperatures in urban centers comfortable for all residents – not just within range of temperatures experienced in the 2020s, but even lower, by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Urban areas became climate refuges for residents looking to escape the heat, pay lower energy bills and experience a better quality of life. Indoor and outdoor air quality improved, and vulnerable populations could participate in outdoor activities because of the reduced temperatures and easily accessible amenities. Culture also changed, reorienting itself primarily around green infrastructure, which was enhanced through public and private incentives and partnerships. Gardening became part of daily life, and garden centers became as common and affordable as grocery stores.

Get Green Initiative

In 2100 new home buyers receive Comprehensive Home Planting Reports at closing that include a soil analysis, an indoor air quality and aerobiome assessment and the latest neighborhood heat and water data. The report recommends local New Home Planting-certified garden centers, where owners can go for a free planting consultation to receive 5% off closing costs. 

Garden centers and plant nurseries are as common as grocery stores. Their AI-kiosks or in-house planting consultants use your planting report data to help determine which plants and trees will thrive in your lot conditions. They also take into account cooling and ecosystem services these plants may provide, like storing carbon, providing oxygen and shade, reducing energy costs and supporting a diverse web of species indoors and outdoors. These consultations help to ensure you get the right plants in the right spots, the first step to meeting your home and community heat and wellness goals. It’s also common for people to use interactive planting guides at home. Whether through an AI-kiosk, planting specialist or at-home planting guide, you’re able to generate different planting scenarios, calculate economic, health and environmental benefits and choose the best plant that works for you as well as your community. 

Aerobiome reports and indoor air quality data help guide you in choosing plants that will support a diverse community of healthy microbes within your home or business, leading to improved health and wellbeing for people spending more time indoors. Microbes and plants filter indoor air, and you can even inoculate the indoor environment with healthy symbionts by purchasing and administering a microbial booster kit. Or, you can hire a microbe technician to come to your door. 

People have an increased awareness and appreciation of soil quality. Testing and monitoring soil is a part of everyday life, like surveying land for homebuilding or development. A soil report is required for every property at purchase and then annually. In the first few decades of Get Green, property owners received tax credits for improved soil quality and relative green space. Over time the tax credits were retired, and rather, property value increases with improved soil quality and reduced energy demand. 

Urban foresters are common and often referred to as “Plant Clinicians” or “Plant Longevity Specialists.” They offer a public service for all residents. Once a month a plant specialist visits all commercial and residential buildings like a mailman or trash collector, while providing health guidance like a doctor. Longevity Specialists conduct plant check-ups, identify disease or barriers to healthy growth and offer prescriptive advice to improve plant health. They also make recommendations to others who can address the health of the nonhuman residents living among your plants. If a prescription involves new plants or soil amendments, government programs offer discounts for qualified residents. Thanks to widespread adoption of urban forestry services, urban trees grow larger and live longer. As a result, streets and homes are cooler – and cheaper to cool – for longer.

Project Cool

In 2100, communities gather and enjoy nature rather than isolate indoors thanks to increased vegetation, reflective building and infrastructure materials and building and city design that promotes ventilation and walkability.

People get everything they need within a walk, rideshare service or public transportation, and traffic has decreased. Many parking lots are replaced with pocket forests, water gardens or vegetable gardens. And blacktops are coated with a microbial paint that dries in light colors that reflect rather than absorb the sun. 

Multifamily housing and single homes often have lush courtyards and water features that reduce heat and the need for air conditioning. There’s a resurgence of tropical home designs that lost popularity with the advent of air conditioning systems. The typical home of 2100 has lighter-colored walls and roofing, porches, high ceilings and a clear, open path for air to flow from one side to the other. Its windows have been placed strategically along interior and exterior walls to improve ventilation and reduce heating and cooling costs. 

New buildings are oriented to take advantage of sun and wind patterns to increase shading and allow ventilation in and around the buildings. Older buildings are retrofitted using landscaping or canopies to restore lost wind tunnels. High-rise buildings use light colors, many covering the roof and vertical sides with greenery. Often, these “living” buildings are irrigated through a gravity system that pumps water stored during particularly rainy days in rain barrels and abandoned underground infrastructure. Microbes filter the water, killing off dangerous species and eating up bad chemicals. Many buildings set up kirigami or smart canopies that respond to the environment or provide shade when it is most needed. Air quality improves. Outdoor eating along breezy, shaded streets flocked in greenery is a common experience.