As global temperatures rise from accelerating climate change, extreme temperature swings‚ both cold snaps and heat waves‚ are causing increasing damage and disruption.
Extreme heat is the most widespread and deadly weather-related hazard in the United States, and it is worsening due to both climate change and urban development patterns. It is a complex problem that has significant impacts on human health and the built environment.
Cold waves and winter storms can be just as destructive, forming storm fronts hundreds of miles long and bringing plunging temperatures that infrastructure cannot withstand, all causing tremendous damage, disruption, and loss of life. Damages from the five costliest winter storms from 2013 to 2022 totaled nearly $50 billion.
ULI resources introduce real estate and land use professionals to the risks posed to real estate by extreme heat and cold, present the business case for resilience, and provide mitigation measures that can be used to decrease risks.
This report introduces real estate owners, developers, and investors to the risks posed to real estate by extreme cold and other hazards typically associated with winter, and presents the business case for cold-resilient buildings and the potential mitigation measures real estate can consider as part of a fully resilient portfolio.
Article in Urban Land Magazine that summarizes the Cold Snap: Extreme Cold and Real Estate report.
With input from over 50 subject matter experts from ULI’s membership and beyond, Scorched: Extreme Heat and Real Estate outlines how extreme heat will affect the real estate and land use sectors and highlights the leadership and the potential positive impact of the real estate sector in implementing “heat-resilient” building designs and land uses.
Published in partnership with ULI Asia Pacific, this white paper explores how leading developers, designers, and policymakers in the region are considering temperature-related risks in their work. Read the report here.
ULI Boston/New England convened a Living with Heat charrette to develop strategies to deal with the immediate threats to communities during extreme heat events. The charrette focused on four neighborhood sites experiencing Urban Heat Islands in the Metro Boston region and proposes design solutions to mitigate the impact of the rising temperatures predicted by 2070. Read the report here.
Based on a 6-month Urban Design Climate Workshop hosted with ULI New York and community partners, this report focuses on how innovative land use and climate-adaptive strategies might improve quality of life in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Key themes include opportunities for reducing the negative impacts of extreme heat and better managing stormwater-induced flooding and sea-level rise.
ULI brought together 8 district councils from across the South/Southwestern region of the United States to explore how extreme heat is impacting the real estate industry, from land use patterns to building design and operating costs. Featuring panelists from ULI’s Urban Resilience Program and experts across the region, this recorded discussion includes how “heat-resilient” building designs and urban heat mitigation can change our cities before they become too hot to handle.
Extreme heat kills more people annually than any other climate hazard. At the request of Houston’s Chief Resilience Officer, ULI Houston and the ULI Urban Resilience program hosted a virtual Technical Assistance Panel as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort to identify heat resilience design and construction strategies.
As part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort, ULI convened a vTAP to focus on land-use strategies, building requirements, and other policies and programs that can help mitigate the effects of heat in downtown adjacent neighborhoods in Nashville. Specifically, the panel addressed building and site-scale landscape heat design resilience strategies, building retrofits and land use heat mitigation, and equitable heat financing opportunities.
On April 14th and 15th, 2022, as part of the Resilient Land Use Cohort, ULI San Diego – Tijuana led a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) focused on the topic of Heat Resilience and Adaptation Planning for the County of San Diego. With county planning staff as the client, ULI convened a panel of experts in the fields of climate resiliency, urban planning, environmental planning, economics, and urban design, to explore how cities across the San Diego and Tijuana region are addressing the threat of extreme heat.
In October of 2019, a tornado passed through north and northwestern Dallas, Texas, directly impacting an approximately 16-mile area and damaging or destroying homes, businesses, public facilities and the tree canopy. ULI was asked by the City of Dallas to convene a Virtual Advisory Services Panel (vASP) focusing on a study area on the western edge of the tornado’s path. The panel was asked to provide recommendations on how to promote environmental justice, social cohesion, and climate resilience to extreme heat and flooding in this industrial area.
With trends pointing to hotter summers, some developers are leading on building for heat resilience. ULI Nashville hosted private sector developers in this webinar to discuss their experience and results in building for heat resilience and how their lessons learned can apply in Nashville, Middle Tennessee, and across the South.
Google, The Nature Conservancy and AECOM have been working individually and collectively to provide cities, including Phoenix, with data, tools and targeted support to fight the climate crisis. In Phoenix, this kind of partnership was applied to define and measure the economic consequences of heat in the Phoenix metro region and the potential benefits offered by various adaptation solutions. Watch this session to learn how data produced through cross-sector collaborations between the public and private sectors and NGOs can be applied to climate action planning and implementation.
In 2018, ULI New York and the ULI Urban Resilience program convened a Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) to study the urban heat island effect in Gowanus, Brooklyn, for the Fifth Avenue Committee – a community-based non-profit organization that advances economic and social justice locally. Volunteer member experts representing disciplines including development, transportation engineering, landscape architecture, engineering, architecture, urban and environmental planning, and healthcare gathered to understand how the urban heat island effect could impact Gowanus, and what tools could be used to mitigate that impact and improve the local environment, health and quality of life.