More homes mean more heat. Can new building codes help save metro Phoenix from disaster?
Phoenix is the nation’s hottest city and it’s getting hotter due to the urban heat island effect. More residential construction is badly needed, but it’s adding to the problem with more roofs, roads and heat-creating building activity. More sustainable building codes could help, but as the article also states, “Denser, multifamily units could boost affordable inventory faster while placing less strain on water and energy resources and adding less heat, but Maricopa County is building three times more sprawling, single-family homes.” Yet many cities fight multihousing. As Jake Hinman of the Arizona Multihousing Association states in the article, “They don’t want density. So they adopt what I consider to be a symbolic gesture to say ‘we’re a green city,’ but then they don’t do the very thing that would help them curb emissions, conserve water, all of these things that we know building density and building on smaller lots does.”
