Too hot to handle: Designing streets for a warming city

It’s 95° in the shade. Assuming you can even find some.

This week’s heat wave is a reminder of something we all feel but rarely name: cities are hot, and New York is hotter than it needs to be. The asphalt radiates, sidewalks bake, and the air is heavy with heat and exhaust. And where does it get hottest? Often the poorest neighborhoods in the city.

The urban heat island effect—a boring name for a dangerous phenomenon—means that dense urban areas can be up to 7°F warmer than their surroundings. That’s not just uncomfortable. It’s deadly. In a typical year, 350 New Yorkers die from heat-related causes, mostly in low-income areas with little shade, poor ventilation, and high exposure to paved surfaces.

But this isn’t inevitable. Cities around the world are finding ways to design for a hotter future. And in some cases, the solutions are surprisingly simple.

Cooling infrastructure doesn’t have to be high-tech

Last summer, I visited Kaunas, Lithuania, where I stumbled upon something brilliant: misting arches. Just a curved frame with a few nozzles spraying a fine mist—installed right in the middle of various pedestrian plazas.

The city didn’t close off roads or launch a billion-euro climate plan. They just… made it easier to cool down on a hot day. It was joyful, playful, and accessible.

In New York, we already crack open fire hydrants on hot days. Why not formalize that impulse—with cooling sprinklers at schools, in plazas, along walking routes?

Green streets are resilient streets

The benefits of increasing green space, shade and cool roofs in cities are well documented. Beyond our parks, we can create more green space on our streets. 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights has become Paseo Park. Why not turn Manhattan's 14th Street into a forest, too? (More on this another day.) As we continue to strengthen our bus and bike network and reduce vehicular traffic, more cool, pedestrian-friendly opportunities become possible. The city already met its ambitious plan to plant a million trees from 2007-2015, and it needs more.

New York's °CoolRoofs program has converted over 10 million square feet of rooftop into highly reflective cooling roofs, reducing energy costs in those buildings by 7-15%. From a financial standpoint alone, this adds up fast—especially as energy costs rise.

In addition, cooling pavement with reflective and permeable characteristics can reduce temperatures by 10-15 degrees. These treatments can be targeted to the city’s hottest neighborhoods—especially where residents are most vulnerable.

Right now, NYC is piloting some of this: rain gardens, reflective coatings, permeable medians, more trees. But as days like today show, we still have plenty more to do. Fortunately, there are many creative approaches that we can apply to the challenge of a warming city, but they require coordination across agencies and accountability for results.

If we treated heat the way we treat snow, we’d have a clear citywide strategy. Both are disruptive, both are dangerous, but unlike snowy days, hot days will become more common in the years ahead.

Let’s cool the city, one block at a time

We don’t need a silver bullet. We need mist arches, more trees, shaded bus stops, permeable surfaces, and thoughtful design. We need coordination across agencies and ambition in the face of rising temperatures. Because it's not just about surviving summer—it's about designing a city that thrives in it.