I'm so Sick of this Lazy Excuse (for bad cities)

0:00 A few years ago, I made a video called The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities,

0:04 where I talked about how Americans and Canadians love to claim

0:07 that good urbanism can't work there because their countries are too big.

0:13 And I still think that's probably the dumbest excuse,

0:16 but the laziest excuse is definitely the weather.

0:19 We all deal with weather on a daily basis.

0:21 It's literally the first thing you see when you look outside.

0:25 So, it's also the most obvious objection

0:27 that even idiots can immediately come up with.

0:30 But the truth is that there isn't much of a correlation between

0:33 the weather in a city and how well that city is designed.

0:36 And some of the world's best cities have absolutely terrible weather.

0:41 When developing any urban improvement, whether that's bike lanes,

0:44 car-free streets, or public transit in place of cars,

0:48 there are dozens of factors that will determine the success

0:51 of that project that are way more important than the weather.

0:55 To the point where talking about the weather is at best

0:58 a distraction and more likely a complete and total waste of time.

1:02 Which is why when people freak out about

1:04 some proposed change to their city by saying,

1:06 "What am I going to do if there's bad

1:08 weather?" The correct response is just put on a jacket.

1:17 [Music] In the middle of the 20th century,

1:21 cities around the world were being overwhelmed by cars,

1:24 and this was causing huge problems for air quality,

1:26 productivity, and livability.

1:28 In an attempt to repair the city,

1:30 Copenhagen did something that few had ever attempted.

1:33 They planned to remove cars from a street where they were previously allowed.

1:37 Shopkeepers claimed that the plan would be a disaster and that the shops

1:41 would go out of business if their customers couldn't arrive by car.

1:44 But from the general public, there was an even bigger objection.

1:47 The weather.

1:48 Copenhagen has many dark, cold, and rainy days as well as snow in the winter.

1:53 So, this was an easy excuse.

1:55 Some detractors even claimed that the plan was contrary to Danish culture.

2:00 This isn't the Mediterranean.

2:01 They said the Danish prefer cozy meals at home, not outdoor cafes.

2:06 But the mayor was determined to try it and in 1962

2:09 the plan went ahead and despite the weather it was a massive success.

2:14 Today this street pronounced kind of like stroll because Danish is a very silly

2:18 language has become one of the most

2:20 famous and successful car-free streets in the world.

2:23 The shops and restaurants are always in high demand.

2:26 Business is better than ever and several

2:28 more nearby streets have been pedestrianized.

2:31 It's also become normal across Denmark for cafes

2:34 to have heaters and blankets when it's cold outside.

2:37 It turns out that outdoor huga was part of Danish culture after all.

2:42 A few years later, Fresno,

2:43 California wanted to emulate that same success by pedestrianizing this street.

2:48 Here too, shopkeepers claimed that the plan would drive them out of business.

2:52 Though in this case, the weather was not a concern as the majority

2:55 of days in Fresno were warm and sunny.

2:59 The solution, separate cars and pedestrians for the benefit of both.

3:04 A one-way inner loop collects and distributes the incoming traffic.

3:09 Ample parking facilities are provided adjoining the loop.

3:13 Streets inside the loop are converted into areas reserved for pedestrians only.

3:18 So in 1964, Fresno closed off this street

3:21 to cars and reopened it as the Fulton Street Mall.

3:25 And there was much rejoicing.

3:29 The Fulton Mall saw some success, but over time more and more stores

3:34 started closing and the street was struggling.

3:37 Finally, after years of debate, cars were reintroduced to the street in 2017.

3:44 It turns out that if you build a pedestrian street

3:46 that most people have to drive to, few people will go there,

3:50 no matter how sunny it might be.

3:53 And this really gets to the heart of why I don't often talk about the weather.

3:56 is just so insignificant when there are so many more

4:00 important things to talk about when it comes to city design.

4:04 In Copenhagen, this street was in the middle of a mixeduse walkable area

4:08 with thousands of people living within walking

4:10 distance and with easy access by public transit.

4:13 This street in Fresno was in the middle of the city

4:16 in what used to be a mixeduse walkable neighborhood.

4:19 But by 1964, the streets had been widened to accommodate more cars.

4:23 Many of the buildings downtown had been demolished.

4:26 build parking lots.

4:27 Public transit was underfunded and unreliable,

4:30 and the majority of people arrived by car.

4:33 Incidentally, I noticed while researching this that Fresno

4:36 is almost the same physical size as Copenhagen,

4:39 despite having about 1/3 the population.

4:42 That's insane.

4:43 That kind of totally unconstrained urban sprawl is not cheap to maintain.

4:48 And while we're doing comparisons,

4:49 less than 2% of trips are taken by bicycle in Fresno,

4:53 while Copenhagen is one of the best cities for cycling in the entire world.

4:58 And that's because they built an extensive network

5:01 of protected bicycle lanes that make it quick,

5:03 efficient, and comfortable to ride a bike.

5:05 The weather is irrelevant.

5:09 Of course, the absolute highest level of cycling

5:11 in any country in the world is the Netherlands.

5:13 And yet, the weather sucks here, too.

5:15 It rains a lot, especially in the winter.

5:18 And nearly every year we get a storm with heavy winds of over 90 km per hour.

5:24 Technically, those serious wind storms are any

5:27 with winds 9 or higher on the Bowfort scale,

5:29 an outdated method of estimating wind speed based

5:32 on the appearance of waves on open water.

5:34 But we don't have to go into details

5:35 about why the Netherlands still uses the Bowfort scale.

5:38 The point is, it's really windy here.

5:40 But people still ride bikes and the wind

5:43 is sometimes referred to as Dutch hills.

5:46 There's even an annual headwind cycling

5:48 challenge held on the Oster Schelicaring.

5:51 Tom Scott has a video about the 2020 competition where

5:54 the winds were nine bowfort which um means uh uh high waves,

6:01 dense streaks of foam along the direction of the wind,

6:03 sea begins to roll, spray affects visibility.

6:06 That's really windy.

6:08 In the late '9s, I lived in Northern California, and the weather was perfect.

6:14 I worked in Sunnyvale, a city literally named for how much sun it got.

6:18 I used to joke with my Canadian colleagues that the TV stations

6:21 could just pre-record their weather reports because every day was 72° and sunny.

6:27 I don't even remember what 72 means because Fahrenheit is stupid.

6:30 I just remember that it was basically

6:32 perfect room temperature weather almost every day.

6:36 And yet all of my Californian colleagues

6:38 would go from their airond conditioned house

6:40 to their air conditioned car to their air

6:42 conditioned office and to the air conditioned shops.

6:45 Nobody rode a bicycle to work.

6:47 And it sure as hell wasn't because of the weather.

6:50 It was because you would die cycling here.

6:52 This video is showing the road right around the corner from where I worked.

6:57 I also found this clip on Getty Images and it's a time-lapse for no good reason.

7:01 I don't know why people do that, but it

7:02 was taken less than a kilometer from my old office.

7:05 I had forgotten just how shitty this place was.

7:09 What a complete waste of a city with absolutely perfect weather.

7:14 When you look at the cities that have

7:16 the highest levels of cycling in the US and Canada,

7:18 you'll find Montreal and Minneapolis that have snowy winters,

7:22 as well as Seattle and Portland, where it rains a lot.

7:26 This study of 90 American cities found that annual precipitation,

7:30 the number of cold and hot days,

7:32 were not statistically significant predictors of bike commuting in large cities.

7:37 It's not that the weather has zero effect on walking and cycling.

7:40 It's just that factors such as safety, urban sprawl, mixeduse zoning,

7:44 parking prices, and the quality

7:46 of the infrastructure are so much more important,

7:49 which are of course many of the things I talk about on this channel.

7:52 And many of the problems that urbanists are trying to solve,

7:56 like the weather might partially explain why only 18% of all trips in Olu,

8:01 Finland are taken by bicycle compared to 38% in Amsterdam.

8:06 But when less than 2% of trips in your city are by bike,

8:10 it's not because of the weather.

8:13 It's really common for someone to come across one

8:15 of my YouTube videos for the first time and immediately comment,

8:18 "But it won't work in the rain." Or, "Now show it

8:20 in the winter." Like it's some kind of epic gotcha that invalidates everything.

8:25 Of course, I have shown bad weather many times before in my videos,

8:28 but obviously the people making the laziest possible excuse haven't bothered

8:32 searching for those or really given it any thought at all.

8:35 But I do show scenes of good weather more often than cold or rainy weather.

8:39 And there are several good reasons for that.

8:41 For one, video filmed in bad weather looks terrible.

8:45 There's lots of footage I've taken that is

8:47 unusable because there's water on the lens

8:49 or it's so dark that it's hard to even tell what you're looking at.

8:53 Most of the time I'm trying to tell you about good urban design.

8:56 So, it helps if you can actually see it.

8:59 And while my most expensive camera is much better in low light,

9:03 it's also not waterproof.

9:05 But it wouldn't matter if it was because it

9:07 sucks to stand out in the rain and the snow.

9:10 I use a lot of original footage in my videos.

9:12 I'll use stock footage for generic scenes

9:14 and sometimes I'll used video filmed by others.

9:17 And of course, I never use AI generated video,

9:20 which means that the vast majority of video you see

9:23 on this channel was filmed in person on location by me.

9:28 And once you include traveling, setting up, waiting,

9:30 and capturing footage that I don't end up using,

9:32 it means that for every minute of video you see, I spent about an hour outside.

9:38 So, while I'll regularly go out in bad weather to get to where I'm going,

9:42 I don't really have an interest in standing outside for hours freezing my ass

9:45 off and potentially ruining my expensive camera

9:47 gear just to show you the same scene,

9:50 but darker and with people wearing jackets.

9:55 Nevertheless, there will be fewer people walking and cycling when it's raining.

9:58 And there are several good reasons for that, too.

10:01 When there's bad weather,

10:02 there will always be fewer people out for recreational trips.

10:05 That's obvious.

10:06 There will also be people who take public transit instead.

10:10 And there will, of course, be people who drive.

10:13 The Netherlands is a wealthy country

10:14 with a relatively high level of car ownership.

10:17 People here aren't cycling because they don't own a car.

10:20 They cycle because it's often the fastest,

10:23 cheapest, and most convenient way to get around.

10:25 Which is why it's way more important to make cycling fast, safe,

10:29 and convenient rather than assuming nobody will cycle because of the weather.

10:33 But it can also be misleading to just look at the number of people cycling

10:37 at any one time because a significant number

10:39 of people here don't stop cycling when it rains.

10:41 They just delay their trip.

10:44 Where I'm from, people routinely check a traffic

10:46 app and change their travel times based on traffic.

10:49 And here in the Netherlands, people routinely check a weather app and change

10:52 their travel times based on rain forecasts.

10:56 For the most part, these are pretty accurate, at least for the next hour or two.

11:00 So, if it's showing there's a break in the rain coming up,

11:03 then people will travel during that time.

11:05 And if someone can't delay their trip for whatever reason,

11:08 then they just go out in the rain anyway.

11:12 In the Netherlands, there is a very common expression

11:17 which basically translates as you're not made of sugar, right?

11:20 Meaning you won't melt in the rain.

11:22 This is a culture that has developed because

11:24 people are used to going outside in the rain.

11:27 And ultimately, there are things that you can do

11:29 to make bad weather less uncomfortable, even when cycling.

11:33 You can wear a rain jacket and rain pants or a rain poncho designed for cycling.

11:38 Cargo bikes have rain covers to protect kids from getting wet.

11:41 And yes, people here even cycle with umbrellas.

11:45 It's actually much easier than you'd think,

11:47 and it works pretty well in light rain.

11:50 If you want to get really fancy,

11:51 they even sell umbrellas that can handle hurricane-like winds.

11:55 That's like 12 bowfort.

11:59 When I buy shoes, I usually buy a pair that's waterproof.

12:02 They're not any more expensive than regular shoes,

12:04 and it just means there's one less thing I need to worry about when it rains.

12:09 This might seem weird to people who don't live

12:10 in a place like this, but it's absolutely totally

12:12 normal here because ultimately people adapt to the situation

12:16 they're given and it just becomes part of the culture,

12:19 just like blankets at cafes in Copenhagen or having

12:22 a GPS app on your phone's home screen in Toronto.

12:25 I've read studies about how and when people

12:28 change their travel plans based on the weather.

12:30 And what I find most interesting is that people

12:32 respond very differently to the weather in different regions.

12:36 This paper studied the differences in weather dependent travel between

12:39 Utk in the Netherlands and several cities in Norway and Sweden.

12:43 And they found huge differences even between

12:45 these cities that are relatively similar culturally and geographically.

12:49 For example, people here in Utk traveled shorter distances when it snowed,

12:53 whereas people in Oslo and Stockholm did not.

12:57 And there's a really simple reason for that.

12:59 It snows every year in Oslo and Stockholm, so people are used to it.

13:03 But that's not the case in Utre.

13:06 Ultimately, people get accustomed to the weather they live in, and it's

13:09 only extreme events outside of that norm

13:12 that significantly changes travel patterns.

13:15 And what's often misunderstood is how the infrastructure or lack

13:19 thereof also influences people's travel behaviors in bad weather.

13:23 For example, this paper studied the effects

13:25 of weather on travel patterns in Toronto.

13:28 Unsurprisingly, they found a drop in cycling during cold and rainy weather.

13:32 But they also found confusing differences by age and gender.

13:36 Having lived several years in both cities,

13:38 I can confidently say that I have no problems riding a bicycle in dark,

13:42 rainy weather in Amsterdam.

13:43 But I will always avoid riding a bicycle in the exact same weather in Toronto.

13:49 In Amsterdam, it's always safe to ride a bicycle.

13:52 There are protected bicycle lanes on all major roads.

13:54 Most neighborhoods have trafficcoming and the routes

13:57 taken by cars and bicycles have been separated.

13:59 So there are far fewer interactions between cars and bicycles in general.

14:04 And while it doesn't often snow in Amsterdam, when it does,

14:07 they clear the bike lanes at the same time or before they plow the car lanes.

14:12 In Toronto, even the best bicycle infrastructure is still of much lower quality,

14:16 and it's extremely inconsistent.

14:19 It's also very common to end up

14:20 on streets without any bicycle infrastructure at all.

14:23 and drivers regularly speed down residential

14:26 streets following their GPS to avoid traffic.

14:29 I know from experience just how hard it is to see

14:32 people walking and cycling while driving when it's dark and rainy.

14:35 And it's already dangerous enough to cycle in Toronto in good weather.

14:39 So, there's no way in hell I want to be out

14:41 on a bike on this shitty infrastructure when it's dark and rainy,

14:44 or worse, when it's dark and icy.

14:48 Oh.

14:53 But of course, people see that far fewer people are

14:56 cycling and immediately assume it's only because of the weather.

15:00 Is the weather sometimes terrible when I need to go somewhere?

15:03 Yes.

15:04 Do I go outside anyway?

15:06 Also, yes.

15:07 Does it suck?

15:08 Absolutely.

15:09 But that's fine.

15:10 And I'm not bragging here.

15:11 There's nothing particularly special about going out in bad weather.

15:14 It's just part of life.

15:16 And apologies for my boomer ass take,

15:19 but I think it's a good thing to have a little bit of discomfort in our lives.

15:22 It makes us better prepared to deal with the other life throws at us,

15:26 and it makes us really appreciate the good weather when we have it.

15:30 There is nothing better than the happy energy of the people

15:33 out on cafe patios on the first sunny day of spring,

15:36 even if it is only 10° outside.

15:39 And if you can't handle the rain, okay, that's fine.

15:43 But don't force the rest of us

15:44 to live in a dangerous asphalt covered wasteland bankrupt

15:48 from building car infrastructure just because you need

15:50 to use two tons of steel as a raincoat.

15:54 I just find the constant excuses to be so annoying.

15:58 If I make a video about literally any topic related

16:00 to cities and I don't put in a lengthy discussion about snow,

16:04 the comment section will be flooded with ignorant Canadians

16:07 claiming everything I've said is impossible because of the winter.

16:10 which is why one of the early videos on this channel was about winter cycling.

16:15 Specifically about the city of Olu, Finland,

16:17 which has a significantly higher percentage of trips taken by bicycle than

16:20 any Canadian city or any other city in Finland for that matter,

16:24 despite having much colder weather than most Canadian cities and having

16:28 an almost identical population density to my hometown of London, Ontario.

16:33 The reason for that is because they have a comprehensive network of safe

16:37 bicycle lanes and they plow their bicycle paths very quickly after a snowstorm.

16:42 Again, it's the infrastructure that makes the difference

16:44 and the weather is much less important.

16:48 But even when confronted with this information,

16:50 it was wild how many Canadians dug their heels into the snow

16:55 and insisted that it was still due to the weather.

16:58 I literally had people arguing that because

17:00 Olu stays consistently cold all winter,

17:03 it's easier to cycle there than in cities where it sometimes goes above zero.

17:08 Like, are we seriously going to ignore

17:10 the infrastructure and plowing and say, "Oh, oh yeah,

17:13 you can cycle in Amsterdam where it rarely snows and you can cycle in Olu

17:17 where it always snows." But cycling is

17:20 impossible in Canadian cities because it snows inconsistently.

17:24 Sorry, it's not the infrastructure.

17:26 It's just a different type of snow, you see.

17:29 So, us snowflake Canadians can't bike here.

17:32 And I get Canadians saying ridiculous things like,

17:34 "We can't remove cars because old people need to drive

17:37 in the winter." And then I go to Norway and see lots of seniors out for a casual

17:41 stroll on pedestrianized streets when it's absolutely freezing outside.

17:45 So, I think you can start to understand why I

17:47 have lost all patience for any discussions about the weather.

17:51 Also, and look, I'm really sorry to have to do this, but Canadians

17:54 just outright lie about how cold it gets in the winter.

17:58 They'll take the lowest temperature they can remember seeing, round down,

18:01 and claim that it's like that 6 months of the year.

18:04 But it's even worse because Canadians are also starting from a fake temperature.

18:09 When you ask someone from Scandinavia or Finland how cold it is on a winter day,

18:13 they'll tell you the air temperature.

18:16 But Canadians will always quote the wind chill temperature,

18:19 which is a different number.

18:21 In the winter, skin will lose heat faster when there is a cold wind.

18:25 The scientists that originally calculated

18:27 this effect would typically report the amount

18:28 of heat loss in watts per square meter of exposed skin.

18:33 But this was considered too obscure for weather reporting to the general public.

18:37 And so there was a mix of different

18:39 ways that this information was presented in weather reports.

18:42 So in 2001, the Meteorological Services of Canada

18:45 and the National Weather Service in the US

18:48 worked together to develop a standardized method

18:50 of reporting the wind chill as a temperature.

18:54 The goal of this was to reduce the occurrence of hypothermia

18:57 with the logic that if the general public saw a lower number,

19:00 they were more likely to dress in warmer clothes.

19:04 But of course, you only feel that windchill

19:06 temperature if your skin is exposed to the cold.

19:10 The majority of people in Canada put

19:12 on what are called clothes when they go outside.

19:14 They don't walk around with a lot of exposed skin.

19:18 So the wind chill temperature was never the real temperature outside.

19:21 And if you're wearing a scarf and a toque like you should be,

19:24 then the windchill temperature is even less relevant.

19:28 Which is why people say there's no such thing as bad weather,

19:31 just incorrect clothes.

19:34 Many European countries report a similar

19:36 kind of perceived temperature in the winter,

19:38 but it's a much more advanced calculation that also takes

19:40 into account other factors such as solar radiation and humidity.

19:45 So when I say that lots of people were cycling when it was -26 in Olu,

19:49 Finland, and a bunch of Canadians respond with, "That's nothing.

19:53 It was -35 every day here last winter." Just understand that they are

19:58 completely full of A lot of this comes from people who drive everywhere.

20:02 If you spend all of your day in a heated

20:04 house and travel in your heated car to your heated

20:06 office and your only exposure to the cold is the time

20:09 it takes you to scrape the ice off your SUV,

20:12 then yeah, it feels really cold outside.

20:14 Winter weather can be mitigated by wearing proper clothing,

20:17 but the fact is that the more often you go outside,

20:20 the more you get used to the weather.

20:22 Your body has several mechanisms to regulate temperature.

20:26 With consistent cold exposure, your body adjusts blood flow to extremities,

20:29 alters your shivering threshold,

20:31 and modifies metabolism and hormone levels for more efficient heat production.

20:35 Which is why when I lived in Canada,

20:37 it would feel absolutely freezing when it was- 10 in December.

20:40 But after getting used to the cold all winter,

20:42 I'd be wearing my jacket open when it was- 10 in March.

20:46 Similarly, when you're regularly exposed to the heat, your body also adapts.

20:51 This involves changes in hormone levels and metabolism as well,

20:54 but also changes in the electrolyte concentration of your sweat,

20:58 your blood plasma volume, your skin blood vessel dilation,

21:01 and even when you sweat.

21:03 People who are regularly exposed to warm

21:05 weather will start sweating earlier and will

21:07 maintain a lower core body temperature than

21:10 people who haven't acclimatized to the heat,

21:12 which is one of the many reasons why

21:14 the British are insufferable while on vacation in Spain.

21:18 Yet, they were somehow able to colonize India.

21:21 The human race has managed to inhabit and thrive

21:24 in a staggeringly diverse variety of different climates.

21:27 From our origins on the African savannah to the perafrost of Siberia,

21:31 I just refuse to believe that as a species we can no

21:35 longer travel without climate controlled boxes

21:37 unless it's literally 72° and sunny outside.

21:41 On the opposite end of the weather spectrum,

21:43 I also get people telling me that good urbanism could never work in hot places.

21:48 And the people saying that usually live

21:50 in some car-in-fed wasteland like Phoenix, Arizona.

21:53 Now, let me be clear.

21:55 Phoenix is a terrible place.

21:57 This city should not exist.

21:59 It is a monument to man's arrogance.

22:01 But I used to live in Taipei, where it's really hot and humid in the summer.

22:05 Air conditioning is very common indoors for obvious reasons.

22:09 But the city is also designed to make that heat more tolerable, too.

22:13 The arterial roads are lined with shops,

22:16 but they're set back to provide shelter from the sun and the rain.

22:20 There are also lots of trees to provide shade, especially on smaller streets.

22:24 And there are little parkquettes in residential areas.

22:27 The metro system is aironditioned and it's very extensive.

22:31 They never stop building new metro lines,

22:33 so there's a new one opening every couple years, and it's always getting better.

22:38 And this city has a really strong

22:39 nighttime culture as it's cooler outside at night.

22:43 Taipei still has a lot of issues, and I made a previous video about that.

22:47 But when it's hot outside, it is so much nicer to travel around without

22:50 a car here than anywhere in the US or Canada.

22:54 Just like with the cold, people always overestimate the effects of the heat.

22:58 If you regularly go outside in hot weather, you get used to it.

23:03 But if you spend all of your time in an air conditioned box

23:06 and only experience the heat while walking between your car and the Walmart,

23:09 then yeah, it's going to feel insanely hot by comparison.

23:14 People also underestimate just how much

23:16 of a difference trees can cool down a city.

23:18 The most obvious benefit is shade,

23:20 and I tested the difference during a heat wave a few years ago.

23:23 The sidewalk was 48° in the sun and only 30°

23:28 in the shade of trees just a few meters away.

23:31 Plus, any buildings in the shade of trees

23:33 will be cooler and will require less air conditioning,

23:35 which means that less heat will be released

23:37 into the surrounding environment by the outdoor unit.

23:40 But trees also cool down the air in other ways,

23:42 like releasing moisture, a process called evapot transanspiration.

23:47 And several species of trees cool down the air as it passes across their leaves.

23:52 If there's enough shade in trees, public transit has air conditioning,

23:55 distances to major destinations aren't too far away,

23:58 and there isn't a lot of asphalt, then hot weather is much less of a problem.

24:03 I've also cycled when it's 40° outside.

24:05 And you know what?

24:06 It's actually way easier than walking because the wind cools

24:10 you down and you get there in 1/3 the time.

24:13 Get an ebike and it's even better.

24:16 And yes, I know when it's extremely humid and above the wet bulb temperature,

24:20 it's genuinely dangerous to be outside because your body

24:22 can no longer cool itself down by sweating.

24:24 But even in the world's hottest cities,

24:26 that's not an everyday occurrence, climate change permitting, of course.

24:31 I've driven across North America eight times, and I've mentioned before,

24:34 what surprised me the most is how outside of a few historic regions,

24:38 the US and Canada basically looks the same almost everywhere.

24:42 This applies to the terrible strodess which make up huge swast

24:46 of most cities but also to the residential neighborhoods regardless of climate.

24:51 Everything is the same cut and paste design that has reduced most

24:54 of the US and Canada to one homogeneous sea of carcentric slop.

24:59 And yet this is one of the absolute worst ways to design a city for hot weather.

25:05 Cars produce a lot of heat.

25:06 Asphalt absorbs heat from the sun and then radiates it back for hours.

25:10 And the greenhouse gases from car exhaust heat up the atmosphere even more.

25:14 The urban heat island effect is a thing and it makes

25:17 asphalt covered carcentric cities even hotter than they would otherwise be.

25:22 In the early 2000s, Seoul tore down an elevated freeway

25:25 and replaced it with this beautiful stream that significantly improved the city.

25:30 And I have a previous video about that if you'd like to learn more.

25:33 But importantly, when the stream was open,

25:36 the average heat island temperature dropped 9% with some

25:39 areas 23% lower than when it was a highway.

25:43 And temperatures around the stream were 10 to 13%

25:46 cooler than neighboring streets only 400 m away.

25:50 The stream also radiates less heat than asphalt and concrete,

25:53 and even a small drop in radiant heat can

25:55 make the street feel significantly cooler to people walking by.

25:59 So, if the weather is really hot where you live,

26:02 you should be making more stuff like this, not like this.

26:07 In hot climates, the absolute last thing you want

26:10 to be doing is encouraging more people to drive.

26:12 But so many hot cities pave everything and make

26:15 it almost impossible to get anywhere without driving.

26:19 The good news is that many aspects of good urban design are universal.

26:23 mixeduse zoning to bring destinations closer to where people live.

26:27 More trees and greenery, extensive public transit,

26:30 and with better accessibility, more car-free places,

26:34 better cycling infrastructure,

26:36 rooting cars onto roads and highways and away from neighborhoods,

26:40 and in general devoting much less space to moving and storing cars,

26:44 and much more space for people to live, work, and enjoy each other's company.

26:49 And the weather is a critically important part of these designs.

26:52 like providing trees for shade and shelter from the wind.

26:56 Designing proper transit stops that shield

26:58 people from the elements while they wait.

27:00 Ensuring that sidewalks and bicycle lanes are

27:03 properly cleared of snow as soon as possible.

27:06 Turning traffic lights green for bicycles more often when it's raining.

27:10 And making sure the city stays accessible to everyone, even during bad weather.

27:15 This is how the weather should be discussed in urban planning as a way

27:19 to make cities work better for everyone

27:21 instead of just a lazy excuse for inaction.

27:27 There are many good reasons to build mixeduse

27:28 walkable cities from better livability to more financial sustainability.

27:33 But one of the major benefits of compact city design is that it

27:36 significantly reduces the amount of natural

27:38 land that's consumed by urban sprawl.

27:42 I think it's important to conserve the natural environments that we have left,

27:46 which is why I'm a member of Planet Wild,

27:48 a nature protection organization based in Germany and operating globally.

27:52 They do something really unique.

27:54 Think of it as crowdfunding for nature,

27:56 making it super easy and transparent for everyone

27:59 to protect our natural environment from home.

28:02 Every month, Planet Wild selects a new

28:04 project aimed at protecting animals, forests, or oceans.

28:07 And every month they document the work they're doing on their YouTube channel.

28:12 That way we the community can see where our money goes

28:15 and we can see our positive impact on nature every month.

28:19 Their latest video came across my feed

28:21 the other day and it legitimately impressed me.

28:24 The last of Europe's old growth forest is at risk of illegal logging.

28:28 So Planet Wild has partnered with Agent Green to fund

28:30 a very interesting approach to locating chainsaws in real time.

28:35 I'll put a link to their video in the description.

28:37 You can also follow these projects in their app where they provide detailed

28:41 information about each project and a link

28:43 to the organizations they're working with.

28:45 As a member of Planet Wild, you can give whatever amount feels right to you.

28:49 Every little bit counts,

28:51 and you can cancel your membership at any time, no questions asked.

28:55 I really like how Planet Wild is

28:57 making environmental protection more accessible and highly transparent,

29:00 which is why I want to promote the work that they're doing.

29:03 If you want to join a growing movement

29:05 that's making a real difference in environmental protection,

29:08 then join Planet Wild, a community of nearly 14,000 people, including myself,

29:13 who are contributing every month to make a real positive impact.

29:17 It's great to see what a group of people can achieve together.

29:21 To sign up, scan the QR code,

29:23 follow the link in the description, or download the app.

29:26 And if you use my code, bikes 10, you'll get your first month for free.

29:30 And if you just want to see Planet Wild in action,

29:32 check out the video about saving Europe's old growth forests,

29:35 link in the description.

29:36 Thanks so much for watching,

29:38 and thanks to Planet Wild for sponsoring this video.