More Cities Tackle ‘Shade Deserts’ as Rising Temperatures Lead to Health Problems

If it weren’t for the traffic along South MacDill Avenue, Javonne Mansfield swears you could hear the sizzle of a frying pan. The sun is scorching with such violent intensity that even weathered Floridians can’t help but take note. In a hard hat, Mansfield pushes a shovel into the earth. Heat radiates from the road, the concrete parking lots. It’s around 10:30 a.m., and his crew is starting a 10-hour shift fixing traffic lights in West Tampa. Cloud coverage is minimal — thin and wispy. There’s no greenery or trees to shield them, no refuge from the blistering sun. “I can feel it,” Mansfield says, “like I’m cooking.” A mile south, near Palma Ceia Golf and Country Club in South Tampa, Kiki Mercier walks a poodle mix along a row of stately homes. It’s the same city on the same July day, but here, the heat feels different. Plush lawns spotted with children’s toys help absorb the sun’s rays. But it’s the dozens of live oak trees with sprawling branches that make the biggest difference to Mercier, who walks dogs for a living. Here, it feels possible to be outside, protected by natural tunnels of shade. As the climate warms, a person’s health and quality of life hinge, in part, on the block where they live or work. Green space and shade can be the difference between a child playing outside and being stuck inside on hot summer days, the difference between an elderly person fainting while waiting for a bus and boarding safely, the difference between a construction worker suffering heatstroke on the job and going home to their family. Neighborhoods with more trees and green space stay cooler, while those coated with layers of asphalt swelter. Lower-income neighborhoods tend to be hottest, a city report found, and they have the least tree canopy. The same is true in cities across the country, where poor and minority neighborhoods disproportionately suffer the consequences of rising temperatures. Research shows the temperatures in a single city, from Portland, Oregon, to Baltimore, can vary by up to 20 degrees. For a resident in a leafy suburb, a steamy summer day may feel uncomfortable. But for their friend a few neighborhoods over, it’s more than uncomfortable — it’s dangerous. Last month was Tampa Bay’s hottest ever. As Americans brace for an increasing number of hot days and extreme weather events linked to climate change, medical professionals stress that rising heat will make health inequities worse. “Heat affects quality of life,” said Cheryl Holder, co-founder and interim director of Florida Clinicians for Climate Action, a coalition of medical professionals that advocates for solutions to climate change. “It’s poor and vulnerable patients who are suffering.” Now, cities like Tampa are trying to build heat resiliency into their infrastructure — including by boosting their tree canopy — all while experts warn of a public health threat growing more severe each year. Unrelenting heat As a human body warms, sweat gathers and evaporates from the skin, transferring heat away and into the air. But in Florida, humidity hangs like a blanket, making it harder for the body’s cooling system to work. “The sweat just doesn’t evaporate, so you don’t lose heat as effectively,” said Patrick Mularoni, a sports medicine physician at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg. In these unrelenting summer months, doctors like Mularoni have seen up close the toll heat can take. Muscle cramps and headaches. Fatigue. Heatstroke — which can be…