Solarpunk Urbanism

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A community to discuss solarpunk and other new and alternative urbanisms that seek to break away from our currently ecologically destructive urbanisms.

Henri Lefebvre, The Right to the City — In brief, the right to the city is the right to the production of a city. The labor of a worker is the source of most of the value of a commodity that is expropriated by the owner. The worker, therefore, has a right to benefit from that value denied to them. In the same way, the urban citizen produces and reproduces the city through their own daily actions. However, the the city is expropriated from the urbanite by the rich and the state. The right to the city is therefore the right to appropriate the city by and for those who make and remake it.

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Atlanta is embracing a cheap, effective way to beat urban heat: 'cool roofs' (grist.org)

submitted 5 days ago by SteveKLord@slrpnk.net to c/urbanism@slrpnk.net

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Walk outside into 100-degree heat wearing a black shirt, and you’ll feel a whole lot hotter than if you were wearing white. Now think about your roof: If it’s also dark, it’s soaking up more of the sun’s energy and radiating that heat indoors. If it were a lighter color, it’d be like your home was wearing a giant white shirt all the time.

This is the idea behind the “cool roof.” Last month, Atlanta joined a growing number of American cities requiring that new roofs be more reflective. That significantly reduces temperatures not just in a building, but in the surrounding urban environment. “I really wanted to be able to approach climate change in the city of Atlanta with a diversity of tactics,” said City Council member Liliana Bakhtiari, who authored the bill, “because it’s far easier to change a local climate than it is a global one.”

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 15 points 5 days ago (8 children)

This has always been one of those, “why the fuck don’t we do this already?” things. Also, NighthawkInLight has a video on how we could make self cooling buildings with infrared cooling paint. https://youtu.be/N3bJnKmeNJY

[–] Addv4@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 children)

"It isn't cheap" seems to be the biggest issue. Saw another video that showed it working, but he did say it was pretty expensive for paint.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 6 points 5 days ago (3 children)

sorry, I meant why aren't we using white paint. There's no way white paint is expensive compared to black paint.

The infrared cooling paint has other issues, like it doesn't withstand damage easily and the surface texture needs to be maintained very well. But like, white paint is the cheapest kind of paint, just due to commonality.

Alternatively, why aren't we growing plants on all the roofs, that would absorb even more heat without requiring air conditioning, and it would improve air quality, it could be used for farming, etc. Now that one I can understand being more expensive, but you might be able to offset it with sales of whatever you're growing up there, but that's really unlikely. So white paint really seems like a no-brainer.

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