Contemporary income inequality outweighs historic redlining in shaping intra-urban heat disparities in Los Angeles
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1.
Jet Propulsion Lab
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2.
California Institute of Technology
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3.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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4.
University of Southern California
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5.
New York University
Abstract
The roots of intra-urban heat disparity in the U.S. often trace back to historical discriminatory practices, such as redlining, which categorized neighborhoods by race or ethnicity. In this study, we compare the relative impacts of historic redlining and current income inequality on thermal disparities in Los Angeles. A key innovation of our work is the use of land surface temperature data from the ECOSTRESS instrument aboard the International Space Station, enabling us to capture diurnal trends in urban thermal disparities. Our findings reveal that present-day income inequality is a stronger predictor of heat burden than the legacy of redlining. Additionally, land surface temperature disparities exhibit a seasonal hysteresis effect, intensifying during extreme heat events by 5−7 °C. Sociodemographic analysis highlights that African-American and Hispanic populations in historically and economically disadvantaged areas are often the most vulnerable. Our findings suggest that while the legacy of redlining may persist, the present-day heat disparities are not necessarily an immutable inheritance, where targeted investments and interventions can pave the way for a more thermally just future for these communities.
Copyright and License
© The Author(s) 2025.
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Acknowledgement
This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). A.S. and Y.Y. were supported by the NASA ECOSTRESS Science Team Project (grant number 80NSSC20K0078). G.H. was supported by NASA’s ECOSTRESS mission funding. D.R.A. and K.T.S. were funded by the National Science Foundation (grant numbers NSF CBET-1752522 and NSF CBET-1845931). T.C.’s contribution was supported by a NASA Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science grant (grant number 80NSSC24K0505). The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is operated for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) by Battelle Memorial Institute under contract DE-AC05-76RL01830.
Data Availability
The ECOSTRESS Land Surface Temperature (LST) data generated in this study are freely available at the NASA LP DAAC repository under accession code ECO2LSTE v001. The smart meter data used to estimate air conditioning usage is protected by an NDA and not available due to privacy agreements with Southern California Edison (SCE). The sociodemographic, environmental, and health variables used for vulnerability assessment are publicly available from the American Community Survey (ACS), CalEnviroScreen 4.0, CDC 500 Cities Project, and the Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool.
Supplemental Material
Additional Information
Nature Communications thanks Laura Henry-Stone and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. A peer review file is available.
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC12119888
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC20K0078
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- ECOSTRESS -
- National Science Foundation
- CBET-1752522
- National Science Foundation
- CBET-1845931
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- 80NSSC24K0505
- United States Department of Energy
- DE-AC05-76RL01830
- Accepted
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2025-05-05
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)
- Publication Status
- Published