Associate Clinical Professor Julie Gabrielli spoke with WTOP about why city temperatures are so brutal during summer heat waves, the connection between “heat islands” and disinvestment, and how climate change is making suburbs warmer, too. “Taller buildings and transit-oriented development are really good in a lot of ways, because they keep us from sprawling out into further green areas in the far suburbs and it reduces people’s commuting time,” she told WTOP. “But if it’s done in a way that does not give people places for respite, for shade, if there aren’t a lot of street trees or the occasional park, those areas are going to be hotter than the other neighborhoods that we’re more used to thinking of when we think of suburbs.”
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