Climate change hits low-income earners harder – and poor housing in hotter cities is a disastrous combination

Switching on fans in the bedroom is one way people without air conditioning try to keep cool. Shutterstock

This summer’s La Niña weather pattern may have spared Western Sydney from scorching daytime highs, but residents had to contend with hotter and more humid nights^[9]. Wet conditions and cloud cover inhibit the capacity of poorly designed houses to shed the heat, leading to sleeplessness.

Many Western Sydneysiders work from home, too. Community organisation Better Renting^[10] recently produced a report detailing the impact of poor housing on worker productivity during the pandemic. It found those working from home without the means or capacity to improve their environments said they were stressed, couldn’t focus, and needed to finish work early during summer.

Read more: Western Sydney will swelter through 46 days per year over 35°C by 2090, unless emissions drop significantly^[11]

Air-conditioning can provide relief and is critical for some residents, such as some people living with a disability who depend on cool homes and cars for survival. But air-conditioning displaces the indoor heat to the outside, contributing to a more hostile outdoor environment.

So while air-conditioning offers a short-term solution, it does nothing to address long-term disadvantage.

‘Solutions’ don’t go far enough

Social disadvantage underscores the limitations of well-meaning technical solutions, such as the New South Wales government’s program to plant five million trees^[12] by 2030, or City of Sydney’s project^[13] of committing to renewable-powered air conditioning.

These solutions don’t go anywhere near far enough to address the fundamental short-sightedness in how we design and plan our cities.

For example, young trees need far more care to reach maturity through extreme weather, unlike older trees, of which many have been cut down to make way for development. And solar-powered air conditioning will not undo the compounding impacts of urban heat, which research shows make us sedentary, passive and lonely and insecure^[14] because it keeps us indoors and isolated from each other.

Installing light-coloured roof tiles are a low hanging fruit for keeping homes cool. Shutterstock

Indeed, Western Sydney’s current trajectory of urban growth will see urban heat and its impacts worsen, particularly as the state government resists mandating lighter-coloured roof tiles as a perceived impediment to development^[15]. Lighter-coloured roof tiles are better at reflecting rather than absorbing heat, and are a low-hanging fruit for cooling homes.

This trajectory will subject future generations of Western Sydney residents to a city that may become ultimately uninhabitable^[16] for months at a time. These predictions^[17] may seem dire, but we cannot afford to ignore them.

One stark prospect is that even newer and more expensive homes being built in Western Sydney’s growth areas may become stranded assets in a future, when 50℃ summer days^[18] are a norm and the area is subject to regular flooding.

So what do we do?

Researchers and policy makers are turning their attention to making Australian cities more “climate-ready^[19]”.

While catastrophic for communities, the recent floods^[20], fires^[21] and other disasters carry valuable lessons about design failures and community-led solutions that have ultimately kept people safe.

Floodwaters inundated south and southwestern Sydney suburbs in early March. AAP Image/Dean Lewins

We’ve learnt “climate-readiness” cannot be done in a piecemeal way or achieved in the background of everyday life, like set-and-forget technologies. Instead, it means noticing how the natural and built environments interact^[22], and the social practices that contribute to cooler, more liveable futures.

This might include enrolling communities in the care of young trees around their homes, maintaining breeze ways or shade through neighbourhoods, outdoor cooking during summer to reduce heat inside, or shifting the rhythms of social life to cooler night time hours.

This is encompassed in a process called “transition design^[23]”, which takes holistic, long-term view of urban planning to forge a sustainable future. This means starting with what residents want and know works – whether its creating cool pockets in the home or reaching out to neighbours when heat is on its way.

Read more: How new design patterns can enable cities and their residents to change with climate change^[24]

Planners, designers and policymakers should practically link these social solutions to designs that make these more accessible, manageable, engaging and safe.

Parts of everyday life will look very different in future as we grapple with managing energy^[25] and adapting homes to changing climates. But we must also recognise and hold on to what’s important, including reclaiming what we’ve lost to rampant development.

Long-term residents^[26] of Western Sydney may recall a more liveable city, with shaded pedestrian links between homes and shops, seating and facilities in parks and better access to public transport.

These basic amenities are a commonwealth that allow us to remain at home in an increasingly less hospitable world.

Read more https://theconversation.com/climate-change-hits-low-income-earners-harder-and-poor-housing-in-hotter-cities-is-a-disastrous-combination-180960

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