An extraordinary investigation into shade, bringing together science, history, urban design, and social justice to change the way we think about a critical natural resource that should be available to all. On a 90-degree day in Los Angeles, bus riders across the city line up behind the shadows cast by street signs and telephone poles, looking for a little relief from the sun’s glaring heat. Every summer such scenes play out in cities across the United States, and as Sam Bloch argues, we ignore the benefits of shade at our own peril. Heatwaves are now the country’s deadliest natural disasters with victims concentrated in poorer, less shady areas. Public health, mental health, and crime statistics are worse in neighborhoods without it. For some, finding shade is a matter of life and death. Shade was once a staple of human civilization. In Mesopotamia and Northern Africa, cities were built densely so that courtyards and public passageways were in shadow in...
Description:
An extraordinary investigation into shade, bringing together science, history, urban design, and social justice to change the way we think about a critical natural resource that should be available to all.On a 90-degree day in Los Angeles, bus riders across the city line up behind the shadows cast by street signs and telephone poles, looking for a little relief from the sun’s glaring heat. Every summer such scenes play out in cities across the United States, and as Sam Bloch argues, we ignore the benefits of shade at our own peril. Heatwaves are now the country’s deadliest natural disasters with victims concentrated in poorer, less shady areas. Public health, mental health, and crime statistics are worse in neighborhoods without it. For some, finding shade is a matter of life and death.
Shade was once a staple of human civilization. In Mesopotamia and Northern Africa, cities were built densely so that courtyards and public passageways were in shadow in...