Climate change is making life in cities hotter and more dangerous, but cities—Los Angeles included—have not yet adequately responded.

The risk and incidence of heat-related illnesses, such as heat rash, heat cramps, fainting, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke, will increase apace if measures are not taken to reduce their severity and likelihood. These risks fall disproportionately on low-income communities of color.

To prepare for a much hotter future and protect residents from these risks, cities like L.A. have opportunities to change the built environment in fundamental ways, such as by increasing outdoor shade and green space, decreasing urban hardscapes, and requiring or incentivizing the use of cool roofs and cool surfaces. But addressing the problem of extreme heat through measures like these is challenging because the relevant regulatory frameworks are both complex and underdeveloped. Many regulatory and policy regimes do not yet account for the risk of heat in meaningful ways, despite the fact that extreme heat is already the leading weather-related cause of death and will certainly worsen.

This policy brief examines ways for the City and County of L.A. to strengthen their responses to extreme heat, and specifically to reimagine and remake the outdoor urban environment to reduce risks to vulnerable communities. This analysis focuses especially on the problem of exposure to heat in outdoor spaces because that problem is difficult to address, requires significant lead-time to tackle, and has so far received little regulatory attention. It explores opportunities to develop and implement solutions that rely on the built environment, with an emphasis on street-level shade structures.

We propose several measures that could kickstart the critically important transformation of our urban environment to help shield residents from some of the worst effects of rising temperatures.

Download the report here.