“Hot town! Summer in the city…!”

It’s a cracking song – a 1960s anthem to hedonism – and no surprise that it’s been an ‘earworm’ going through my head this morning, as I wrestle with a jammed blind, trying to create some paltry shade for my desk as the mercury soars towards the 40s.

And if that sounds all too familiar, it could seem relatively cool in the not so distant future. Rather masochistically, you may think, I’ve been reading predictions of how summers in the city could get a lot hotter, and not in a good way, as the climate spins out of control.

What caught my eye, though, was not the familiar warnings of what life in a 50-degree city might be like (borderline impossible, basically). Rather, I was struck by the sheer range of responses that cities across the world are starting to put in place to cool the streets. Responses that don’t just turn down the urban thermostat, but that make life sweeter […]