Urban Heat Stress Vulnerability in the U.S. Southwest: The Role of Sociotechnical Systems

Stephanie Pincetl, Mikhail Chester and David Eisenman
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Stephanie Pincetl: Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
Mikhail Chester: Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA
David Eisenman: Center for Public Health and Disasters, UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: Heat vulnerability of urban populations is becoming a major issue of concern with climate change, particularly in the cities of the Southwest United States. In this article we discuss the importance of understanding coupled social and technical systems, how they constitute one another, and how they form the conditions and circumstances in which people experience heat. We discuss the particular situation of Los Angeles and Maricopa Counties, their urban form and the electric grid. We show how vulnerable populations are created by virtue of the age and construction of buildings, the morphology of roads and distribution of buildings on the landscape. Further, the regulatory infrastructure of electricity generation and distribution also contributes to creating differential vulnerability. We contribute to a better understanding of the importance of sociotechnical systems. Social infrastructure includes codes, conventions, rules and regulations; technical systems are the hard systems of pipes, wires, buildings, roads, and power plants. These interact to create lock-in that is an obstacle to addressing issues such as urban heat stress in a novel and equitable manner.

Keywords: urban heat; vulnerability; socio-technical systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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