As the sun comes up every morning, it shines very differently on different land surfaces.
My name is Kale Williams, I'm a reporter with The Oregonian/OregonLive,
and I'm out here in the Lents neighborhood near 93rd and Woodstock
with a professor of urban studies from Portland State University, Vivak Shandas.
It's nice out here, it feels like it's about 75 degrees,
but it's not necessarily this temperature everywhere in the city, is that right?
That's right. On average, on a 95 degree day, we see about 15
degrees Fahrenheit difference across one part of town to another.
They're called urban heat islands, correct?
Right, so these are like little areas of cities that are
anomalies in terms of the average temperature,
so they're actually much hotter than their surrounding areas.
This particular neighborhood has a lot of large parking lots, really dark surfaces, wide roadways,
asphalt and concrete and other materials that absorb that sun's heat.
What were your findings about that phenomenon here in portland?
When we looked at 108 cities across the country using satellite imagery,
we looked at the temperature of those areas that were historically redlined
-- so those areas that were segregated for people of color, low-income communities, immigrants --
we found that those areas were on average about five degrees Fahrenheit
hotter than their non-redline counterparts.
So those disinvested areas really attract some of these amplifying infrastructure,
and that in Portland played out with almost a 13-degree Fahrenheit difference
between places like Mississippi, Albina, Old Town Chinatown
and places like Eastmoreland, Irvington, the southwest hills.
So of all the cities across the country, the effect was most dramatic here?
That's correct.
The higher the average temperature for the region,
the greater the difference across these neighborhoods
and so when you get 115 degree day,
one neighborhood will be 99 degrees and another neighborhood be 124 degrees.
That kind of comes together as a perfect storm of
the social conditions and the built environment conditions,
and that's exactly what we're seeing in this particular heat wave, is that
the farther east you go, the more number of deaths that you see.
Should we take a walk around the neighborhood and look at
some of the things that you've just told us about?
I'd love to. First thing that comes up is this intersection
where you have two major freeways, one going north, one going south,
and that is in and of itself a major contributor,
and then you have these parking lots, some little popsicle trees in the parking lots,
they could do some modest shading, not very much.
A lot of communities experiencing houselessness, which are in the background here,
and those tents are upwards of 135 degrees inside.
We see over here in the shade
the city has put in some boulders to prevent people from setting up camps.
So we're out here in Lents now. Where would we see some of the cooler areas?
For example, a great stretch to see this
distribution is really starting where we are in Lents.
We have sidewalks with no median strips, with limited tree canopy, as we were saying,
and then we take this little transect down Woodstock Avenue
,and as you start going in around 42nd Avenue,
you start seeing a transformation. You'll start seeing the median strips widen,
the roads narrow, seeing more spaces for trees and green space,
and then you get down even closer in towards the Eastmoreland neighborhood and to the golf course,
that's where you really start seeing a big transformation.
In Portland, it's just really punctuated.
You see the larger trees, the larger canopy, in wealthier neighborhoods,
and you see fewer trees, less canopy, less green space more generally,
even parks and open space, in lower income neighborhoods.
What are some of the things that people can do, that city leaders can do,
ways that we can change either our behavior or the way that we build our infrastructure
to help mitigate some of this?
Even a simple thing as I've been talking, about a heat ambassadors program,
where people can check in on their neighbors right before a heat wave is going to hit the region.
Social programs where you're thinking about cooling centers that are around the region,
things like trees and green spaces and roads like this one
and sidewalks like this one that we're standing on,
have no space to be able to plant trees,
and so green infrastructure is really an important thing,
and trying to find places to plant it is what's really hard.
and so let's get ahead of this, and start
really putting those into our plans and policies right now
because we know the writing's on the wall.