How did air conditioning shape the growth of hot cities?

Air conditioning has played a critical role in enabling postwar metropolitan growth in hot climates by removing heat and controlling indoor humidity. Historians rank it alongside highways, automobiles, shopping malls, and suburban housing as a core driver of urban development. Beyond development, it protects public health by preventing heat-related illnesses and averting hundreds of thousands of deaths globally each year.

What we know

• Historians rank air conditioning as a key factor that shaped postwar metropolitan growth, alongside highways, automobiles, shopping malls, and suburban housing. [2]
• Air conditioning achieves comfort by removing heat from an enclosed space and in some cases controlling internal air humidity. [2]
• An estimated 190,000 heat-related deaths are averted annually owing to air conditioning. [2]
• Most victims of the July 1995 Chicago heat wave were elderly poor residents who lacked air conditioning or could not afford to turn it on. [5]

Where to go next

• how it workedHow do heat pumps work for both heating and cooling?
• a case in pointWhat caused the high mortality during the 1995 Chicago heat wave?
• what caused itHow does extreme urban heat threaten human health globally?
• the bigger pictureWhat are passive cooling and other alternatives to mechanical air conditioning?
• compared withHow do automotive air conditioning systems cool vehicle cabins?
• an unexpected connectionHow does keeping buildings cool contribute to global warming?While air conditioning saves lives by protecting people from extreme heat, it simultaneously drives climate change by consuming roughly 7 percent of global electricity and emitting 3 percent of greenhouse gases as of 2022.

Sources

• [1]air conditioning (Wikidata Q173725) · CC0 1.0
• [2]Air conditioning · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [3]Automotive air conditioning · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [4]The Heat Will Kill You First · CC BY-SA 4.0
• [5]1995 Chicago heat wave · CC BY-SA 4.0