Charlotte strives to tackle extreme heat, energy costs and increase sustainability in underserved communities

By Will Atwater (North Carolina Health News) and Melba Newsome (Climate Central)

This story was produced through a collaboration between North Carolina Health News and Climate Central. Climate Central’s Jennifer Brady and Elizabeth Miller contributed data reporting.

As president of the McCrorey Heights Neighborhood Association and a member of the Historic West End Association, Sean Langley is keenly aware of his neighborhood’s past, and of how the legacy of one of its darkest chapters has magnified the effects of climate change to raise temperatures and utility costs during the intensifying summers.

The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 achieved its ambitious goal of building 41,000 miles of roads to connect 90 percent of the nation’s most populous cities by the 1970s. The roadway expansion came at great cost to urban communities of color like Charlotte’s McCrorey Heights.

Sean Langley, the McCrorey Heights Neighborhood Association president, welcomes the city’s efforts to increase tree canopy and also wants to see greenways established in the West End. He believes providing miles of dedicated spaces unencumbered by cars would increase the quality of life for his community, including his two young children. Credit: Sean Langley

Just a mile north of Uptown in Charlotte’s Historic West End, residents were displaced, businesses were shuttered and neighborhoods were decimated to make room for an expressway system that includes I-77, the north-south interstate highway that funnels traffic through the city center.

Aerial view of Charlotte’s McCrorey Heights neighborhood. “Elevated levels of pollutants like particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, as well as carbon dioxide, that come off highway systems often correlate with higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease and other health disparities,” said Daisha Wall, community science manager for CleanAIRE NC, a health, equity and environmental advocacy organization based in Charlotte. Credit: Cornell Watson

Decades later, McCrorey Heights is boxed in by heavily trafficked thoroughfares that saddle the community with pollution, extreme heat and a growing energy burden.

“Elevated levels of pollutants like particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, as well as carbon dioxide, that come off highway systems often correlate with with higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease and other health disparities,” said Daisha Wall, community science manager for CleanAIRE NC, a health, equity and environmental advocacy organization based in Charlotte.

The effects of heat-trapping concrete and other surfaces and a dearth of shade trees in some areas means McCrorey Heights can be more than 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer on average than surrounding rural areas, modeling shows. That’s in addition to the heat being trapped by fossil fuel emissions and other pollution that is raising temperatures across North Carolina and the globe.

Langley and his wife chose to settle and raise their two young children in what’s called the neighborhood of firsts, because it produced so many Civil Rights activists.

“My wife and I both graduated from Johnson C. Smith and learned about the history of this community as students,” Langley says. “We wanted to try to find a home here.”

Charlotte is heating up

On July 14, trained volunteers took to the streets of Charlotte to measure temperatures across town. That day, the city’s temperature maxed out at 95°F, and high humidity meant the heat index was even higher than that.

Climate change had doubled the likelihood that the city would experience such a hot day at that time of year, the Climate Shift Index shows. The volunteers were helping to investigate which neighborhoods were sweltering the most during a hot day from a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.

“The hottest areas were Uptown and the rail corridor, [which is] located in a historically industrial area that doesn’t have a lot of trees,” said UNC Charlotte Assistant Professor Katherine Idziorek, a coauthor of a study that described the findings from the day of temperature measurements, which was organized by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“NOAA’s Urban Heat Island mapping program is a fantastic way for communities to use science to identify the hottest neighborhoods and tailor solutions including planting more trees, increasing access to cooling resources, and directing outreach with health tips during heat waves,” Sarah Kapnick, NOAA chief scientist, said in a statement.

Extreme heat is the nation’s No. 1 weather-related killer; the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 1,600 people died from heat-related illnesses in2021.

“As extreme heat affects people’s health more and more across the United States and around the world, programs like NOAA’s Urban Heat Island mapping campaign provide essential information to guide relief and risk mitigation efforts, and to make sure resources get to the neighborhoods at greatest risk,” said Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Admiral Rachel Levine, in statement.

Tallying the energy burden

High temperatures mean high costs for operating air conditioners, which forces many to go without. Residents of the hottest parts of cities often also tend to live in the poorest parts of those cities, in communities where air conditioning can be most critical but least affordable.

According to U.S. Department of Energy data, North Carolinians spend on average $2,340 annually on electricity, slightly less than the national average.

Nationally, roughly a quarter of people living at or below the poverty line spend 15 percent of their income on energy, according to a September report by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, forcing them to make “difficult choices between paying energy bills and buying other essentials, like food and medicine.”

A street view of homes in Charlotte’s Washington Heights neighborhood near Beatties Ford Rd. To reduce energy costs, Solar for All, a program established from funds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, is aimed at making solar panels more accessible for low-income households nationwide. Credit: Cornell Watson.

In addition to the effects of dense urban landscapes, features of lower-cost housing like poor insulation and drafty windows can drive high energy burdens.

“Low-income households are more likely to reside in older and less energy-efficient homes that have inadequate insulation, drafty air leaks, and outdated heating and cooling systems,” said Roxana Ayala, senior local policy research analyst at the council. “The households that are least able to afford the up-front costs of home energy upgrades are the ones that most need utility bill savings.”

Residents of the American Southeast also face some of the nation’s worst rates of power outages during heat waves and from storms.

The Inflation Reduction Act, a key pillar of President Joe Biden’s economic legacy that invests heavily in climate solutions, is starting to foster new local economies while aiming to reduce energy costs and boost local renewable energy sources for businesses and homeowners.

The Inflation Reduction Act’s Solar For All initiative works to help make solar panels more accessible for low-income households nationwide. In April, Energize NC, a program administered by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, was awarded more than $156 million to address the energy burden of low-income residents, among other goals.

According to an analysis by the Clean Investment Monitor, a database of clean energy and climate technology investment projects built by MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research and the Rhodium Group, four clean energy projects eligible for benefits under the Inflation Reduction Act have been announced in the Charlotte area since the legislation was signed into law, including at a solar company in Stanly County and at an electric vehicle plant in Huntersville.

‘Charlotte knows what to do’

Tiffany Fant and Jeffrey Robbins head two Charlotte-based organizations that partnered with the City of Charlotte to seek an Environmental and Climate Justice Community Change Grant, a federally funded program aimed at addressing environmental and climate justice issues in disadvantaged communities.

Through the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration made nearly $2 billion available for the Community Change Grants Program to support disadvantaged communities to “reduce pollution, increase community climate resilience, and build community capacity to address environmental and climate justice challenges,” according to information provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

On a November afternoon, Fant drove through affluent and under-resourced neighborhoods to show that “Charlotte knows what to do” to reduce energy costs.

The street view of the Myers Park community in Charlotte, North Carolina, shows several mature street trees that mitigate the heat island effect. Credit: Cornell Watson

Robbins pointed to the need to assess older homes in affected communities to determine if they can be made suitable for rooftop solar. With grant funding, they can “do an HVAC overhaul and add new windows and doors [to] bring the home up to standards of energy efficiency and protection against heat and cold.”

Charlotte was not selected to receive a Community Change Grant, so the partners said they are looking for other ways to tackle the heat and energy problems that plague parts of the city.

Planning for the future

Idziorek thinks the city should consider limiting the amount of space given over to parking, which would free up more area for trees and grass to serve as local air conditioners.

“Not that we don’t need parking,” Idziorek said., “But I think we could definitely be smarter and more strategic about how that’s configured and how much we’re building.”

In areas where parking is needed, Charlotte-based landscape architect Hamilton Cort said there’s a paving material that’s more environmentally friendly — though also more expensive — than asphalt.

“One of the techniques designers can use to reduce the heat island effect but still [maintain] the functionality of asphalt is a product [called] permeable asphalt or permeable pavement,” Cort said.

Because the material is porous, it reduces stormwater runoff, reducing flood risks, and it does not store as much of the sun’s heat as asphalt, Cort said.

Idziorek also thinks it’s worth taking a closer look at urban sprawl in one of the fastest-growing cities in the county.

“Other things that can be done are really just compact urban growth — limiting sprawl, making sure we conserve green spaces and open spaces when possible,” Idziorek said. “Then providing folks with transportation options [and] limiting greenhouse gas emissions, which the effects of those in terms of air quality, are compounded by heat.”

The infrastructure is necessary to incentivize people to get out of their cars more.

“If people have options to bike or walk or take transit, that can go a long way toward reducing some of those greenhouse gas emissions,” Idziorek said. “Of course, then we have to make sure that we’re providing a comfortable environment for folks to do those things, which is where the trees, green space, bus shelters and things like that come in.”

Georgia Tech Professor Brian D. Stone says we need to think about trees as infrastructure, and put them along streets [and] sidewalks.

“We expect pipes underground to carry away storm water, trees do the same thing in terms of lessening heat risk,” Stone said. “We need to spend the amount of money that it takes to create tree boxes and nourish trees and replace them when they fall down and die from disease or wind.”

The one-story apartments that comprise Charlott’es Brookhill Village and the two high rise complexes behind them have limited tree canopy, which mitigates extreme heat, reduces energy costs and cleans the air. Credit: Cornell Watson.

Stone also said we need to reimagine the role of cars in cities if we’re going to meet the challenges of affordable housing and a changing climate.

“We have a tremendous amount of potential space in cities if we don’t prioritize so much space for automobiles, where we could put more affordable housing and climate infrastructure. I call it adaptive urbanism, a really important goal for cities. But, sometimes it feels like we’re a long way from it.”

Goal for 2050

Charlotte received $1.1 million from the Inflation Reduction Act through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Urban and Community Forestry Grant Awards program. Of that funding, $600,000 is to assist with tree care on private property and $500,000 is for tree care in the public right of way areas within the Corridors of Opportunity zones.

“We’re really excited to preserve trees in these areas for homeowners [who] may not have the ability to maintain trees,” said Laurie Reid, arborist for the City of Charlotte. “They can keep the larger trees in their yard to continue to reduce energy costs, increase shade and all the ecological [and] social benefits that trees provide.”

The grant has a five-year timeline, and the city has already begun the tree planting and maintenance work in right-of-way areas, Reid said.

Reid said adding more trees is a good mitigation strategy for neighborhoods that are battling air and noise pollution as well as extreme heat — like McCrorey Heights. Trees “produce oxygen, take in carbon dioxide […] The other thing they do is provide a sound buffer.”

The Urban and Community Forestry Grant funding is essential in helping the city reach its long-term goal of increasing its tree canopy from 47 percent to 50 percent by 2050. However, according to an assessment by TreesCharlotte, the canopy is at risk of declining to 40 percent by 2050 because of development and “natural mortality.”

A call for greenways

Moving forward, although Charlotte did not receive a Community Change Grant, the city has resources to begin tackling extreme heat and energy burden in low-income communities through federal funding it received to care for and increase tree canopy and to make solar energy available in neighborhoods in the city’s Corridors of Opportunity.

Langley, the McCrorey Heights Neighborhood Association president, welcomes the city’s efforts to increase tree canopy and also wants to see greenways established in the West End. He believes providing miles of dedicated spaces unencumbered by cars would increase the quality of life for his community, including his two young children.

“I’m advocating for greenways, but I’m also advocating for green space,” he said. “We could certainly use more parks that are easily accessible. On the weekends, we’re on our bikes, but the sidewalks don’t provide a buffer between cars and people.”