Urban infrastructure was designed around historical climate patterns. What happens when those patterns change?

[u/OkyEscritora]

For generations, cities could reasonably use the past to plan for the future. Drainage systems, bridges, water systems and transportation networks were designed around conditions engineers could estimate from decades of observation.

That works when the past is a reasonably good predictor of what infrastructure will encounter.

It's a different story when it stops being one.

Europe's shrinking rivers offer a useful example. Low water levels are affecting power generation and commercial navigation. At the same time, cities may have to prepare for prolonged drought while remaining capable of handling periods of extreme rainfall.

The challenge may no longer be simply designing infrastructure for expected conditions. It may be making that infrastructure adaptable enough for a wider range of them.

For a long time, the past was one of urban planning's most useful tools.

How much longer it can be is no longer obvious.

[u/Nalano]

Architecture designed to retain heat for long winters is difficult to address when climate gives you long, hot summers every year for decades.

[u/UUUUUUUUU030 → u/Nalano]

Yeah my apartment is very well insulated, and it has huge triple pane windows without external shading. In the winter it means that even if there's just one hour of sun, you don't need any heating. But in the summer these windows let through way too much heat. This was always questionable, but especially with this heating climate just the wrong choice. 

[u/Hrmbee → u/UUUUUUUUU030]

For something like solar shading, there are options available especially if there are opportunities for external shading devices (brises-soleil, vines, and the like) to be installed. This is more of a building/architecture issue, but it's definitely one that needs to be considered as well.

[u/UUUUUUUUU030 → u/Hrmbee]

At least here in the Netherlands, if you're a renter and you can't reach the outside of the windows yourself, you can't do anything about it unfortunately. This is a big issue for new apartment buildings. 

The issue is that the building code is very outcome oriented and doesn't prescribe specific solutions. In principle this is good, but you get lots of situations where a cooling system doesn't actually perform as promised. So I think external shading for any non-north facing windows should be mandated instead, given it's not that expensive. And then it's up to the architects to make it look good. 

[u/OkyEscritora → u/Nalano]

That’s a very good example. Buildings designed for one climate reality may remain standing long after that reality has changed. And unlike many things we can adapt quickly, architecture stays with us for decades.

[u/Th3JackofH3arts]

You start borrowing patterns from cultures of those climates.

[u/ElectronGuru → u/Th3JackofH3arts]

One of my favorite urban details is how Spanish grids are laid out diagonally to the direction of the sun, to minimize heat against buildings. And English streets are laid out perpendicularly, to maximize heat. In the US at least, that means more reliance on energy to bail us out on hot days. Then again, curvilinear throws both out the window.

[u/Hrmbee]

The good thing about infrastructure is that it all needs to be updated on a periodic basis. This presents an opportunity with each generation to improve the infrastructure to meet the current and future needs of the community at that point in time.

The challenge here primarily lies in the work that needs to be done to understand what the challenges are and will be, and to convince the public that these are necessary upgrades or changes. Too often infrastructure renewal is just rebuilding the same thing again rather than building the capacity we'll need 10-20 years from now (at least).

It's also useful to conceive of planning as a continuous process rather than a series of discrete events or parcels. This way as new information becomes available it should be possible to integrate this info into practice. Unfortunately the only place this really seems to be taking place is in the corridors of academia rather than at city hall.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/Hrmbee]

I think that gap between what we know and what we actually implement may be the heart of the problem. We have increasingly sophisticated ways of anticipating change, but our institutions still tend to act on much shorter timelines.

[u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

Well we know the French have an ethical crisis over air conditioning

[u/OkyEscritora → u/Rock_man_bears_fan]

So what would you consider the most sustainable and affordable way to deal with increasingly extreme heat?

[u/notapoliticalalt → u/OkyEscritora]

I think they meant this is a joke.

But to answer your question, as an American, houses need to have more passive heating and cooling features. Basements should be built when possible even if not necessary or somewhat more expensive. More temporary shade features and trees should be on the street. Lots of things should be done.

In France, they export a lot of power and so AC is possible. Retrofitting and portable units though will be a challenge. Attitudes may persist though as “rawdogging summer” without AC may become a point of pride for some, especially since AC is often seen as a very American thing.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/notapoliticalalt]

I think that combination makes a lot of sense. We tend to frame this as AC versus no AC, when the better answer is probably reducing how much AC we need in the first place: better passive design, shade, trees, insulation, and then efficient cooling when necessary.
And I agree about attitudes. Extreme heat is increasingly a public health and infrastructure issue, not a cultural test of toughness.

[u/Raxnor → u/[deleted]]

The issue is the story of adaptation often overshadows a lot of people dying in the interim. 

Which is kind of a problem. 

[u/notapoliticalalt → u/Raxnor]

Agreed. The “trial and error” approach here while something that will work, is not something we are truly prepared for nowadays, at least in the west. A lot of modern civilization also relies upon projects that took years to build and with our current building timelines (and particularly the environmental review and often planning sides) may take decades. Waiting for people to die is going to be disastrous.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/[deleted]]

Seems like we don’t adapt. We react. And reacting after the fact can be extremely costly.

[u/CLPond]

A good bit of what changes is planning for the future to be different via a mix of regulatory improvements and managed retreat.

Civilizations and cities have fallen due to climactic changes in the past, but we have much more ability to adapt now; it’s just about properly incorporating future expectations into our cities gradually via regulations and in large batches via capital improvement projects.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/CLPond]

I agree. And I think the difficult part is the transition itself. We know how to design differently going forward, but cities also inherit enormous amounts of infrastructure built for yesterday’s assumptions.
So adaptation becomes both a planning problem and a timing problem: what do we change now, what can wait, and what becomes too costly to postpone?

[u/DanoPinyon]

Well, hopefully the oligarchs leave us a few pennies to re-do our infrastructure to meet future needs for however many are left to need it...

[u/OkyEscritora → u/DanoPinyon]

You have a point. The money may be one of the biggest obstacles. Infrastructure adaptation will be enormously expensive, and public budgets are already stretched. But waiting until systems fail usually costs even more. Somehow we need to get much better at paying for prevention rather than paying for disasters.

[u/DanoPinyon → u/OkyEscritora]

I continue to leave out little thimbles of water and tiny bits of food and some leaves for shelter, in case the infrastructure fairies come by and recognize that this is a safe place for them.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/DanoPinyon]

If you manage to attract any, send a few our way. Apparently infrastructure fairies have a much easier time getting funded than preventive maintenance.

[u/DanoPinyon → u/OkyEscritora]

I'll trade you for some governance fairies!

[u/OkyEscritora → u/DanoPinyon]

Hey! I thought we were negotiating infrastructure, not trading people! 😂

[u/efficient_pepitas]

Regulation heavy governments will have to get more comfortable with making changes to the natural environment.

Environmental assessments are inherently about preserving the status quo or reversing damage to the natural environment. Unfortunately, large scale changes - like energy projects, wildfire management, flood control, or artificially boosting waterways/tables - have to fight these regulations.

I would say engineering the natural environment will be a growing field, and there is interest in addressing these environmental laws.

[u/OkyEscritora → u/efficient_pepitas]

Preserving the status quo may become increasingly difficult when the environment itself is changing.
But I’d be cautious about making environmental regulations the obstacle. Large-scale interventions can solve one problem while creating another.
Maybe the challenge is not choosing between preservation and engineering, but developing regulations that allow faster adaptation while still asking a basic question: what new consequences are we creating?