Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story.
Yana Sutton grew up between Hollygrove and Gert Town, and now, she spends nearly every day there to take care of her grandmother. But it was only in the past few years that Sutton realized how much the extreme heat in the neighborhood was taking a toll on her grandmother’s health.
“The heat is heaviest in the bedroom,” which is in the back of the Gert Town house, Sutton said. The neighborhood has far more concrete and buildings than trees than other parts of the city. The imbalanced landscape amplifies the amount of heat and humidity that passes into her grandmother’s house from a back room. The house’s central air conditioning couldn’t keep up…