Working-class neighborhoods really are hotter

"Socioeconomics determines a lot about our environment: what kind of housing we live in; how far we have to commute to work; the quality of our children's schools. In cities like Phoenix, however, it also determines how hot you're going to be.

Researchers at the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research project at Arizona State University have found that wealthier neighborhoods are cooler - literally. Affluent neighborhoods, such as those in Scottsdale, can be as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than poorer neighborhoods. In an area that routinely reaches hellish triple digits in the summer, every degree counts....

Phoenix may be giving us a glimpse of the future we've set ourselves up for. Many of the climate changes predicted to happen on a global scale are already occurring in the city. The conversion of lighter desert to dark heat-absorbing roads and buildings has raised average daily temperatures by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit across the entire city, as well as raising nighttime minimum temperatures and decreasing frost events.

All that traffic necessitated by Phoenix's sprawling design has resulted in an atmospheric bubble of carbon dioxide over the metro area that's twice the global atmospheric mean concentration, as well as significantly elevated levels of atmospheric nitrogen deposition."

Petra Spiess, "Scientists and the City," High Country News 39.15 (August 20, 2007): 6.