Douglas Kelbaugh - The Urban Fix: Resilient Cities in the War Against Climate Change, Heat Islands and Overpopulation

The Urban Fix

Cities are one of the most significant contributors to global climate change. The rapid speed at which urban centers use large amounts of resources adds to the global crisis and can lead to extreme local heat. The Urban Fix addresses how urban design, planning and policies can counter the threats of climate change, urban heat islands and overpopulation, helping cities take full advantage of their inherent advantages and new technologies to catalyze social, cultural and physical solutions to combat the epic, unprecedented challenges humanity faces.

The book fills a conspicuous void in the international dialogue on climate change and heat islands by examining both the environmental benefits in developed countries and the population benefit in developing countries. Urban heat islands can be addressed in incremental, manageable steps, such as planting trees and painting roofs white, which provide a more concrete and proactive sense of progress for policymakers and practitioners. This book is invaluable to anyone searching for a better understanding of the impact of resilient cities in the monumental and urgent fight against climate change, and provides the tools to do so.

Doug Kelbaugh FAIA FCNU, with two degrees from Princeton University USA, has been an acclaimed educator and practitioner who has won over 20 design awards and competitions over the past four decades. He speaks internationally, publishes voluminously and teaches the largest elective offered by his college at the University of Michigan, USA, where he is a Professor and Dean Emeritus. He has authored and edited six books and many book chapters on livable, lovable and resilient architecture and cities. The AIA and ACSA awarded Professor Kelbaugh the 2016 Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education, the highest award in the field, noting that he has bridged the fields of architecture, sustainability and urbanism as much as any member of his generation.

The Urban Fix

Resilient Cities in the War Against
Climate Change, Heat Islands and
Overpopulation

Doug Kelbaugh

First published 2019
by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2019 Taylor & Francis

The right of Doug Kelbaugh to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice : Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kelbaugh, Doug, author.

Title: The urban fix : resilient cities in the war against climate change, heat islands and overpopulation / Doug Kelbaugh.

Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018048899 (print) | LCCN 2018049971 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429057441 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367175696 (hbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780367175702 (pbk : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780429057441 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Urban ecology (Sociology) | Cities and townsGrowth. | City planningEnvironmental aspects. | Urban heat island.

Classification: LCC HT241 (ebook) | LCC HT241 .K45 2019 (print) | DDC307.76dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018048899

ISBN: 978-0-367-17569-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-17570-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-05744-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

This longest book of my career is dedicated to my wife Kathleen, my children Casey Kelbaugh and Tess Kelbaugh MacDonald and her husband Michael, as well my two grandkids Ramsey and Nell MacDonald. May they find both respite from and meaning in the challenges ahead.

I met Doug Kelbaugh four decades ago, as a fellow pioneer in the early passive solar movement. His famous Trombe Wall house in New Jersey was among the most publicized and influential passive solar buildings of the era. Little did we know it would lead to career-long collaboration, including a short-lived partnership, and lifelong friendship. It has been a close, fruitful relationship and collaboration that has included many essays and several books on architecture and urbanism that culminate in these pages.

He posits that cities are our last, best hope. Thats a bold-faced claim. However, he builds the case brick by brick, like the talented architectural and urban designer he is. The foundation is the already well-understood climate crisis, which he elaborates in compelling and new ways, with a comprehensive and perceptive list of facts and figures.

The first course of bricks on top the foundation wall of climate change is the extreme heat that increasingly plagues most of the planets cities. Urban Heat Islands and heat waves are making cities hotter twice as fast as their surrounding countryside and as the planet as a whole. Extreme heat and humidity are taking an ugly toll on health and livability. And as Doug points out, hotter temperatures can deter people from moving to cities and induce existing urban residents to leave for cooler places. Why is this important? Because cities have many benefits that are essential to human wellbeing and survival.

The second brick course supports a major benefit in the developed world: urban residents have smaller energy/carbon footprints than their suburban and rural counterparts. He aptly refers to this good, if counter-intuitive news as the environmental paradox of cities.

The third course in this edifice is being laid in the developing world, where rural migrants to cities reduce their birth rates, sometimes drastically. Their smaller families mean smaller energy/carbon footprints per household and a smaller national footprint. The reduction in fertility rates helps compensate for their larger per capita footprints as higher incomes in the city encourage greater consumption.

The next layer is more good news: the ways to address climate change and urban heat islands are one and the same. That is, reducing local heat in cities also combats global climate change, often in equal amounts. So why make the distinction between local and worldwide climate change? Because very hot urban temperatures, especially with high humidity, make life miserable, and misery motivates people to act. Whereas climate change is a more remote, abstract, longer-term problem and does not rally people to act as urgently. And the science of local climate change is different from global climate change.

The fifth brick course consists of the actual strategies and tactics to mitigate and adapt to urban heat islands. Cities overheat for two reasons. Their dark rooftops and paved areas, both of which are vast in area, absorb solar radiation that can overheat the local environment. The second source is emissions from tailpipes, chimneys and air conditioners, which add heat as well as carbon to the air. Reducing tailpipe emissions something were both working on currently is a larger scale issue. It requires getting people out of cars onto transit, bikes and their feet, which is a more systemic challenge, but it is a battle that is starting to be won. As for heat spewed into the city by air conditioners, passive solar cooling techniques can reduce their use, as we both learned four decades ago.