Race

This summer has shown how quickly high temperatures can pose serious health risks, with record-breaking heat waves claiming thousands of lives around the world. However, it’s not just high and low temperatures that matter. How many degrees the temperature swings within a day – the daily temperature variation – itself poses health risks. Studies have found that days with larger than normal temperature swings can increase asthma flare-ups and hospitalizations for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, leading to an overall higher death rate than normal. One study, based on data from 308 cities from 1972 to 2013, estimates that 2.5% of deaths in that time could be attributed to large daily temperature swings. Although humans can live in a wide range of ambient temperatures, a dramatic shift in temperature can tax multiple systems in the body, including the immune, musculoskeletal and cardiovascular systems. It can be especially taxing on very young and older in...

Montgomery, Alabama, touts itself as the birthplace of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement. But although Montgomery now embraces its history of bus boycotts and protest marches, it remains one of the most segregated U.S. cities, and still struggles with racial inequality. Today, Montgomery’s population is almost 60% Black. The poverty rate among Black residents is 30.8%, compared to 10.6% among white residents. The city’s infrastructure is deteriorating, and its tax base is shrinking. Cities with histories of segregation tend to suffer more from systemic racism that remains in the veins of their planning laws and policies. As a scholar of urban design and planning, I wanted to know more about how Montgomery’s history affected access to parks and public spaces there. My research explains how the city’s history still influences modern planning and creates unequal access to parks. Racial inequality is deeply embedded in MontgomeryR...

Since the 1940s, there has been a broad shift away from public transit across the U.S., and service has declined in many cities, including New York, Boston, Denver, Orlando and St. Louis. A look back at the last national mass transit boom helps explain the challenges that confront modern transit agencies. Starting in the 19th century, transit companies worked closely with real estate developers to develop “streetcar suburbs” for a growing population. The companies kept fares low, thanks to corporate consolidation, government regulation and thrifty management. During World War II, producing weapons and supplies for troops fighting abroad became the nation’s top priority. Gasoline, tires and autos were strictly rationed, so most commuters had few ways to get to work other than public transit. In Baltimore, for example, people could ride a streetcar anywhere in the city in 1943 for 10 cents. With wartime production booming, the city’s Baltimore Transit C...

In 2021, metro Detroit was hit with a rainstorm so severe that President Joe Biden issued a major disaster declaration at state officials’ request. Nearly 8 inches of rain fell within 24 hours, closing every major freeway and causing massive damage to homes and businesses. The storm was of a severity historically seen in Detroit every 500 to 1,000 years. But over the past decade, the region has experienced several other storms only slightly less destructive, one in August 2023. As the planet warms, severe rains – and the flooding that follows – may become even more intense and frequent in cities like Detroit that have aging and undersized stormwater infrastructure. These extreme events put enormous pressure on communities, but low-income urban neighborhoods tend to suffer the most I am a geomorphologist at the University of Michigan-Dearborn specializing in urban environments, water, historical mapping and flood-risk equity. My recent research, conducted...

The 2023 Georgia peach harvest is looking bad, although the details are sketchy. By some accounts, it’s the worst since 1955. Or maybe since 2017. There are estimates that a mild winter and late spring frost have cost Georgia growers 50% of their crop. Or perhaps 60%, or 85% to 95%. Consumers, say the growers, should expect less fruit, though what’s produced may be “fantastic and huge and sweet.” And they should expect to pay quite a bit more. As ominous as this may sound, the unpredictability of Georgia’s peach harvest has been predictable since the industry’s earliest days. So has public hand-wringing about it. It can be hard to say what a “normal” year is. In 1909, growers produced just over 826,000 bushels. In 1919, it was up to 3.5 million, then 4.4 million in 1924, then back down to 1 million in 1929. There may be plenty of peaches on Georgia license plates, but according to the University of Georgia’s 2021 Georgia Fa...