City of Chicago to upgrade air conditioning at 42 park sites in heat-vulnerable areas
Mayor Brandon Johnson joined officials from the Chicago Park District on Thursday to announce plans for air-conditioning upgrades at 42 Chicago parks.
The effort will deliver $1 million in investments for parks in community areas facing the greatest health risks during extremely hot weather, according to the Mayor's office. Support for the effort will come from Mayor Johnson's allocation of $45 million in Tax Increment Financing district surplus funds to the Park District.
"For too long, communities that have faced the greatest impacts of extreme heat have also borne the weight of underinvestment in the resources needed to keep neighbors safe," Mayor Johnson said in a news release. "This $1 million investment in cooling improvements builds on our commitment to deliver climate resilience, public health, and equity across Chicago. By strengthening our neighborhood parks, we are ensuring that every resident—regardless of their ZIP code — has access to safe, welcoming spaces to cool off during dangerous heat events."
The pilot program prioritizes air-conditioning improvements based upon the results of the Chicago Heat Vulnerability Index, a mapping tool that identified 42 park sites in communities that are especially vulnerable to dangers from heat.
The Heat Vulnerability Index was developed by the Northwestern University's Buffett Institute for Global Affairs through the Defusing Disasters Working Group. In developing the index, researchers pulled data from local hospitals and health facilities and used hospital health outcome data to determine when people were visiting the hospital during heat waves.
Researcher Finley Hay-Chapman told CBS News Chicago last year that the South and West sides are the main areas where researchers are seeing the most vulnerability to heat.
Researchers last year said the goal of the Heat Vulnerability Index was to make changes in areas feeling extreme heat most intensely — solutions such as increasing green space, planting more trees, addressing pollution issues that are worsened during heat waves, and even infrastructure changes such as subsidized air conditioning units. Improved air conditioning at city park facilities also falls into that mission.
A total of 20 park sites will be equipped with air conditioning upgrades by the end of this summer, and 10 more will have upgrades by year's end. Designs for 12 larger capital projects to install cooling infrastructure will ultimately raise the total number of upgraded cooling sites to 42.
