NYCHA reported a decrease in heat outages and shorter restoration times during the 2022-2023 winter heating season, which concluded Friday, citing millions of dollars invested in upgraded boiler systems and newly installed hot water heaters and heat pumps.
Meal delivery programs are uniquely positioned to keep the most vulnerable safe during climate emergencies.
A staff of just 302 people tend to a crop of over 865,000 trees across the city. Adams’ preliminary budget aims to slash $46 million from the Parks Department, which environmentalists fear signals a step back in the mayor’s promise to keep New York City’s canopy alive and growing.
Across the country, cities are transforming asphalt schoolyards into spongy, shady community centers. The new playground at PS 184M Shuang Wen School in Manhattan’s Chinatown, for example, has a porous turf field that can capture an estimated 1.3 million gallons of stormwater runoff.
City Limits looked at complaints received between Oct. 1 and Nov. 21 broken down by community district and found the pattern is similar to previous “heat seasons,” with the greatest number of 311 calls found in neighborhoods in upper Manhattan and several districts in The Bronx.
“With community solar, you subscribe to a share of a large solar project nearby. By subscribing, you get a portion of the solar energy as a discount on your electric bill without the cost or effort of installing solar panels on your own roof.”
A federally funded pilot program and a study in parks both seek mitigation strategies for urban heat islands—areas that experience higher temperatures due to heat-absorbing infrastructure and lack of access to features like greenery and bodies of water.
Queens had the fewest number of cooling centers based on population density with only five for every 100,000 people, while Manhattan had seven, an analysis by City Comptroller Brad Lander’s office found. East Flatbush was the neighborhood with the worst access to cooling centers based on vulnerability.
In the week before the recent heatwave, Department of Correction officials testified at a hearing that nearly 200 individuals incarcerated at the jail with conditions that are exacerbated by heat were still without air conditioning.
The mayor’s office has approved the highest funding for tree planting in half a decade, officials say, allowing the Parks Department to plant 20,000 trees a year for the next four years. But some councilmembers say that pace isn’t fast enough to keep up with extreme weather events that damage the city’s tree canopy.
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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