A recent heat wave in Europe killed thousands of people and sent emergency responders racing to keep up with heat-related illnesses. Infrastructure failures were also reported, as paved roads, highways and train tracks buckled in the blistering heat.

It’s also heating up across the United States. Extreme temperatures in the central and eastern America placed millions of people under heat risk advisories as Fourth of July celebrations got underway.

New Jersey Transit reported systemwide train delays. New York sent medical teams into the streets to provide wellness checks. World Cup organizers scrambled to protect fans from dangerous heat in the pavement-heavy zone around stadiums, distributing water and handheld fans to crowds gathered on surfaces that exceeded 120 degrees.

We can't change the weather, but ...

These are rational responses to the immediate crisis, but severe heat waves aren’t going anywhere. Heat waves are a predictable outcome of autocentric infrastructure that enables the fossil fuel emissions warming our planet and traps that heat at street level.

If cities want to stop playing piecemeal defense, they will have to address the infrastructure lurking underfoot and the planning assumptions that put it there in the first place. 

Many cities have adopted........

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