V. Kelly Turner: Thermal literacy and which heat (472)

<p>V. Kelly Turner, associate director and professor of urban planning and geography at UCLA&#39;s Luskin Center for Innovation, on treating extreme heat as a daily planning problem: which heat, whose body, and what a city can still redesign.</p><p>She argues that heat, in the American Meteorological Society&#39;s definition, is a process, and that a temperature is only a snapshot of it. Thermal literacy is the working knowledge of why you feel hot, why a city heats up, and how to cool down. The urban heat island, she says, is a useful caricature and a poor guide to a person standing in sun or shade.</p><p>Her concerns are unequal access to cooling, streets designed without shade, and a spectacle of record temperatures that does not change practice. Her hopes sit with thermophysiology, cooling that changes what a body has to do, public water, and heat governance that is still young enough to build with equity in mind. She frames what a household can do as agency, and she keeps the problem collective.Cities, she says, are mutable: if we built them, we can retrofit them. </p><p><br></p><p>(00:00) Heat is a verb</p><p>(01:54) Futures we plan for</p><p>(04:10) What thermal literacy means</p><p>(06:58) What counts as a city</p><p>(07:58) The heat island straw man</p><p>(13:04) Inequity, shade, spectacle</p><p>(16:21) Heat in ordinary days</p><p>(19:47) The three Ps of heat</p><p>(23:36) Water as a cooling tool</p><p>(26:57) Building heat governance</p><p>(31:40) Agency, not blame</p><p>(33:40) Heat exposure settings</p><p>(35:56) Cities can be redesigned</p><p>(39:17) Bridging research and policy</p><p><br></p><p>Pairs with episode 471</p><p><br></p><p>Show notes: https://wtf4cities.com/2026/10/15/472i_kelly-turner-associate-director-and-professor-of-urban-planning-and-geography-at-uclas-luskin-center-for-innovation/</p><p>What is The Future for Cities?</p><p>If you would like to support the podcast, check out the <a href="https://wtf4cities.com/wtfbook/">⁠Building Better Cities book⁠</a> or our <a href="https://patreon.com/WTF4CitiesPodcast?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink">⁠Patreon⁠</a>!</p><p>Episode generated with <a href="https://www.descript.com/">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Descript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a> assistance (<a href="https://get.descript.com/t8h92ehcqryz">⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠affiliate link⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠</a>).</p><p>Music by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users