So I'm in the apartment in June and the complex has got a pool so like I'd always done I put the swimsuit on, grabbed a towel, and strode barefoot across the parking lot in the direction of the pool. It was probably 101F, nice day for June. About halfway across the lot I realized I was burning my (tough) feet. I'm a practical person and noticed the white stripes in the lot and ran to one. YUP! At least 20F cooler. Ever since I've wondered why you couldn't do something like that white paint for all the asphalt and concrete. Turns out you can. Hooray! I'm in Tucson now (it's currently 106F/22%). I'm out at 5AM for a bike ride many days and the lows have been steadily climbing over the past decades. Was 84F this morning, the lows increasing every day this week, YUK. When I ride out to the actual desert it gets noticeably cooler, maybe 5F. I want them to take this stuff and just coat the entire Tucson metro area with it.
[edited to add missing words]
There's plenty of literature around it, so I'll drop just this for a food start: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S235271022...
Would painting lime work on city streets, interstate freeways, and parking lots, though? I hadn't thought of that. I'm not going to look it up but an enormous number of house roofs here are pure white from some sort of white/plastic/rubber concoction.
https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/phoenix-to...
edit: screengrab that shows the color difference: https://wormhole.app/a7Alp9#AQrGDBYIigvXaN7Wx1uJJA
If water supply does eventually require changes, the technically obvious and very easy change would be to reduce agriculture (pecans, alfalfa, cotton) by whatever amount is needed. Politically though, that's going to be fun. That agriculture is backed by Big Money.
The heat sucks, but the sun is very bright and my comfortable 75F house generally has a zero or small electrical bill because my roof is covered in solar panels.
The heat sucks hard for 3 months. The rest of the year is fucking glorious.
2. Of all things, y'all really grow alfalfa out there?
https://www.azfb.org/Article/Understanding-the-Economics-of-...
It gets hilarious when it talks about water. I'll summarize: who cares about how much water growing alfalfa takes, it makes a lot of money.
The export number is very impressive!
We grow lots of cotton too.
Anyway, back to the story, I just saw this the other day: https://www.autonocion.com/us/target-mirror-panels-supermark...
Sounds reasonable to me. Trees are big and can create tons of shade and still be 5 feet away from your home.
The new rule applies to Californians living in very high hazard fire zones designated by Cal Fire, applying to an estimated 2 million homes.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2026-08-19/state-a...
We’re currently away from home in a city that has waaaay more concrete than where we live and the temperature increase is horrible, even when the reported temperature is the same.
The US has built horrible cities for a couple of generations now. The incoming increase it temps will hopefully force them to redesign ie the tree plan for NYC
So in Tucson where I live we lightly irrigate several 50' heat happy trees with a nice canopy providing great shade. Next door, providing great morning shade for our backyard, is a 50' mesquite tree with upper branches at least 3' in diameter. No irrigation. In the alley behind our house is an old Palo Verde maybe 30' tall and it does a nice job shading the front part of the yard in the afternoon. Also no irrigation.
To sum up, lack of green cover is a choice, and I don't know but suspect people will value that more as things heat up ever so inexorably. The Sonoran summer sun is a mutherfucker, and shade helps a lot (but doesn't fix it).
https://www.reddit.com/r/phoenix/comments/14o5bdu/a_comparis...
Concrete is a generally defined as any mineral aggregate (so rocks and stones) mixed with a binder (normally cement, but bitumen in the case of asphalt).
As for why roads are normally made out of “normal” concrete, it’s very expensive to build roads like that. Pavements are cheaper to build out of concrete because they only carry the weight of pedestrians, not lots of rolling vehicles. You need a pretty thick slab with rebar in it if you want to build a road surface from it, due to how weak cement concrete is under tension. Asphalt concrete cheats by being flexible, so minor imperfections in the surface or sub-base don’t become sources of critical failures (although they can become pot holes). Asphalt is also cheaper and easier to patch repair, but doesn’t last as long as proper cement road surfaces.
It's just like when saying "man vs animal", everyone knows that man is a type of animal, but it's implied that it's "man vs non-man animal".
Sounds like the comparison isn't between asphalt and non-asphalt concrete, but between asphalt concrete and cement concrete. Unless the only two possible aggregate binders are asphalt and cement, but that seems unlikely to me.
A lot of states use JPCP now for highways that doesn’t require rebar.
I knew a city manager that got a city out of a major projected shortfall, without cutting any services, by investing in redicing long-term expenses.
He was celebrated for it, then fired, because the asphalt company that lost its contract had more political sway than the parks and recreation or public education departments that he fought for.
Ideally, put in concrete roads that include conduits.
Sigh. Fake pictures, plus internal links to the India Times.
The city of Phoenix has some web pages on this. There are pictures of the real coating, pictures of it being sprayed on, and links to technical studies. Phoenix has been doing this since 2021, gradually spraying more streets. It looks like grey paint but has asphalt in it.
Good idea, AI slop article.
[1] https://www.phoenix.gov/administration/departments/streets/i...
The trees really never develop a proper root system. The trees look impressive enough above-ground, but the roots are shallow and weak, and once a proper wind gust hits them, they're yesterday's news.
My apartment complex is surrounded by eucalyptus, olive trees, oleander, ficus, some palms, and other deciduous trees, and in fact it used to be named after the lush treescape, but every time one dies, they are replacing them with desert xeriscape. I predict in enough years, we will no longer have a lawn or any trees at all, and many individual properties are following that same trajectory.
Nevertheless, most cities here pursue an urban greening effect, although they are prudently selecting native species at this time. So, our sidewalks are more likely to be lined with yucca, ironwood, and palo verde, among other things.
As would vehicles.
Phoenix is the hottest city I've ever visited. The people were great, but I struggle to imagine why anyone would want to live there, let alone build semiconductor factories in an area already short on water supply.
The arrival of AC meant there was suddenly a lot of very cheap land around cities that are extremely unpleasant without AC. This resulted in migration and a housing boom which drives up the economy attracting more people.
America’s desert metropolis Is on the short list to lose water (6 hours ago) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/23/us/arizona-canals-colorad...
(I suspect the interstate highway system also contributed to migrations, but haven’t done the research.)