Let’s paint the town, we’ll cool it down

When the going gets hot, the hot get going… or something like that. It’s common knowledge that city streets are hotter than the countryside during the summer, aka the ‘urban heat island’ effect. And in one LA neighborhood (Pacoima), residents have turned to solar-reflective paint to keep things cool – and fun.☝️

☀️ How it works… The paint, which has already been applied across ~1 million square feet of roads, playgrounds, and parking lots, comes with special additives that reflect infrared light. This ends up with the painted pavement absorbing less heat, in theory.

• The data is preliminary so far, but when local residents measured temps in the middle of the day, they found a 30°F difference between pavement that had solar-reflective paint and areas that didn’t.
• Weekly data on surface temps will be collected throughout Pacoima over the next two years. If the initiative proves successful, they’re hoping to replicate the model across LA.

🌇 Zoom out: This isn’t the first time cities have turned to paint to reduce heat, though typically that paint is white – like in NYC, where nearly 10 million square feet of rooftops have been painted over the past decade.

+Across the pond: A giant new park in Madrid, Spain, has a “wind garden” that helps reduce the city’s local daytime temps by up to 7°F.