>>1584559Much of it is due to city design and not funding better design when shitty areas are redeveloped.
Travelling to the core of a Texas City from the burbs might look like this
>Outer crust of sprawling strip malls with treeless black asphalt parking lots>Mantle of hipster mid-rise condos which appear 'green' due to trees lining the street but do not have proper setbacks to allow proper airflow>Core of high-rise buildings, often with dark facades that absorb heat.These cities would be tolerable to cycle through in the shade at 98 degrees. But when the heat island effect raises air temps to 105 and the lack of shade raises the road temp to 140, it's not tolerable even on an electric scooter.
Part of the way to fix this is to make it so that converting a strip mall into hipster mixed-use development doesn't just look green, but actually is green by using terracing, reflective surfaces, and well thought out landscape design (e.g., cyclists getting shade from the westerly sun)
