It’s a catchy tune, but The Lovin Spoonful’s “Summer in the City” doesn’t paint the picture of an appealing environment with its description of a sidewalk as “hotter than a match head.”
New research from Northeastern University may offer relief from those conditions, however, finding that extreme heat and air pollution don’t necessarily go hand in hand when the concrete jungle is made a little more green.
“If neighborhoods with lots of streets also had lots of trees, then you [have] very little correlation between heat and air pollution,” said Daniel O’Brien, professor of public policy and urban affairs and criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern. Trees, his research found, “disrupted the things that make heat and air pollution come together.”
