American culture has a long musical tradition of romanticizing sweltering summer days. “Man it’s a hot one,” we say as we nibble on sponge cake watching the sun bake, feeling the pavement burning so we sit around trying to smile but the air is so heavy and dry, it’s summer in the city and the back of our neck’s getting dirty and gritty, the weather is hot and girls are dressing less, checking out the fellas to tell ’em who’s best, their sun-kissed skin’s so hot they’ll melt your popsicle but at the end of the day all any of us can do is put our 45 on so we can rock on. You get the idea. But the fact of the matter is: while it’s hot pretty much everywhere in Alexandria, it’s hotter in some parts of the city than others, and if you live in one of the toastier neighborhoods you might not think the weather is anything worth singing about.
The reason for this disparity is something called the “urban heat island” effect. Just to be clear, an urban heat island is not a “Love Island” spinoff for singles seeking romance in the city, the part of town where all the restaurants serving spicy food are located, or a 1990s radio show format playing nonstop R&B sex jams. All common misconceptions! Actually, urban heat islands are areas where temperatures are higher than their surroundings because they have lots of concrete and asphalt (heat-absorbing, surface radiation, ouch) but not many trees (shady, evapotranspiration, ahhh).
UHIs have been a thing as long as cities have been around, but climate change means that the heat they experience is becoming increasingly extreme. We should care about this not just because of the sweating, the chafing, and other minor inconveniences of that nature, but also because of serious health hazards like heat stroke, exhaustion, cramps, and having to smell your dog’s breath as it pants extra hard directly into your face after walks.
Here in Alexandria, thousands of people live in urban heat islands: the city identified Landmark, Van Dorn, Carlyle, Eisenhower, Arlandria, and Potomac Yard as the hottest neighborhoods in the climate change action plan it adopted last year. If you happened to notice that those neighborhoods are home to our city’s largest low-income, non-white, and immigrant populations, congratulations! You’re now the head of Alexandria’s social equity office. Please report to City Hall so you can get screamed at by protesters who drove in from Culpeper. Everyone else, let’s put a pin in this fact and keep moving.
You’re probably thinking that since heat islands are so dangerous and they affect the most vulnerable members of our community, we should probably do something about them, right? Wait, you are? Holy shit, that’s crazy. We were totally just guessing! Anyway, great news, the city is already working on a strategy. The aforementioned climate action plan lists a bunch of options for cooling down UHIs, like planting more trees, using reflective paving materials, and providing incentives for property owners to retrofit buildings with cool roofs and more efficient air conditioning. Dog breath mints are not currently listed in the plan but we’re assuming they’ll be included in the next update.
There’s also something important we want to note for all the livability enthusiasts hate-reading this newsletter: preventing increases in urban density is not one of the preferred solutions. Yes, density is positively correlated with urban heat island effect, but it also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions (as we wrote about last year). In other words, the climate benefits of density outweigh its heat-related challenges, which while very serious can be addressed through thoughtful planning and design interventions.
Climate change in general was one of the biggest issues in the local primary election this spring, and it’s obvious that Alexandrians want our government to do something (ideally, lots of things) to address it. Last year’s action plan is a fantastic document full of important ideas for tackling UHIs and other climate impacts, but if we want them to be more than empty words then we have to do what the name of the plan says–put those ideas into action. Because writing a plan is one thing, but actually going out and implementing it? Now that’s hot.
Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life
A guy broke into the Potomac Yard &pizza in the middle of the night to steal a TV but ended up staying an hour to eat a pizza, and while we’re certainly not condoning theft we do appreciate his attempt to put an Alexandria-specific spin on the phrase “making off with the dough.”
Metallica toured the record pressing plant they own in that wedge of land between 395 and the Beltway that somehow is not part of the city of Alexandria. In related news, move over Shirlington because this just shot to the top of our annexation priority list.
The city is having a photo contest to celebrate our 275th anniversary. Everyone should of course feel free to enter but be advised that we have a surefire plan to win by submitting a photo of something that no one has ever seen before in Alexandria: a picture of the mayor without his phone in his hand.
Not since Ed Helms in The Hangover have tattoos and drinking gone together so well as this new collaboration between Captain Gregory’s and Madison Street Tattoo.
Local Discourse Power Rankings
Off the Veep End (Last week: 1). So look. We write a lot of bits about Alexandria. Many of them silly, most of them implausible, all of them
smartfunnyjoke-shaped. Please believe us when we say not even our fevered imaginations could have dreamed up “bulk trash day canceled out of abundance of caution, on rumors of local man engaging in lewd acts with a futon.” What is this guy’s deal. Do you know how off-putting you have to be for the entire internet to take one look at you and without breaking stride go, oh yeah, that dude definitely mounted a chesterfield. And it didn’t stop there! His comments denigrating the value and citizenship of non-parents—or as he so artlessly put it “childless cat ladies”—led to Mount Purrnon cat cafe making t-shirts to mock him. This guy got windmill dunked on by a cat cafe. A cat cafe! You can’t come back from that, man! These are chamomile tea people. These are hushed conversation and quiet contemplation people. If they backhand you clear across a room, that’s a standing eight count, it’s over. Anyway, at the rate he’s going we’re honestly pretty excited for the next issue where we get to explain to you how a resurfaced op-ed he wrote on, like, dog park Stalinists wound up getting him ticketed by the city because of the 300 pounds of dogshit left in his yard.ALX Olympians (Last week: NR). We’re nearly at the halfway point of the Paris Olympics which means it’s time to wrap up the opening acts and start the real Olympics… the track and field events [Becky stabs Jesse with a women’s fencing foil and takes the keyboard from him]. As we were saying, the Olympics have been amazing so far. They’ve had everything! Steampunk sharpshooters, warrior goddess rugby players, GOATS, soccer scandals, pommel horse naps. And of course, local athletes kicking ass: the men’s eight with an Alexandrian aboard made the rowing finals, and gold medalist Torri Huske was once a Chinquapin Wahoo so we’re claiming her (sorry not sorry, Arlington). And yes, Jesse wasn’t entirely wrong, the track events are about to start: so make sure to get the Noah Lyles 200m watch party at ACHS on your calendars.
You Idiots Are Doing This Road Wrong (Last week: 3). Here’s a tip for the people in Cameron Station calling emergency meetings to discuss whether the proposed S. Pickett Street design changes will create an “existential threat” to the neighborhood. Things that are existential threats to Cameron Station: magnitude 7 earthquake, surprise volcano, toxic waste spill, citywide economic catastrophe, collapse of critical infrastructure necessary for human habitability, unexpected outbreak of war with Fake Alexandria, civil unrest, industrial accident, alien invasion, zombie apocalypse, Mediterranean Bakery going out of business, attack by monsters that have been slumbering in the Ben Brenman Park stormwater pond, space-time anomaly that transports Samuel Tucker Elementary School to another dimension, robot uprising. Things that are not existential threats: a bike lane. Hope this helps!
Unnecessarily Aggressive Weather Phenomena (Last week: 4). We finally got some actual rain this week, giving Alexandrians an excuse to run outside and cosplay Tim Robbins at the end of the Shawshank Redemption. Yet despite that welcome influx of moisture, Mother Nature continues her months-long hissy fit and our region is officially in a drought. The city sent out an alert this week asking people to save water by turning off the faucet when brushing teeth and skipping lawn watering days, and… seriously? That’s all we’ve got? That messaging is weak as hell. No one’s going to pay attention to that. You know what requests other cities are out there making? The mayor of Bogotá asked residents to shower in pairs during Colombia’s drought this spring. Now that’ll make people listen to your advisories! All we need to do in Alexandria is follow their lead and make water conservation weirdly sexual. How about telling people to save water on laundry by going naked? Or skipping showers altogether and getting clean by licking each other like cats? Hey don’t look at us like that, we’re just trying to help the environment here. And speaking of weirdly sexual, one resident even offered to help out by going around to clean people’s sofas with his HEY STOP THAT, JD. NOT COOL!
Overheard in ALX
From the mayor’s newsletter:
“A few months ago, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) unveiled a fun new feature where a rider can generate a 2023 ridership report, detailing their transit ridership for the past year. For me, that showed I rode Metrorail 287 times last year and took another 34 Metrobus trips in the same period. Unfortunately, my ridership alone won't balance the budget!”
Well not with that attitude it won’t! Come on Justin, if you would just suck it up and start to WFB (work from bus) every day we might even be able to afford lifeguards (plural) for the city pools.
One Awesome Thing in ALX
Full disclosure for those readers who don’t know us personally, we’re not exactly fashion icons [Editor’s note: agree to disagree]. Becky’s wardrobe includes a shameful number of jorts and Jesse’s is 95% composed of shirts that say Del Ray somewhere on them [Editor’s note: hey, some of them say “Alexandria” instead]. Nonetheless, both of us believe in the importance of having something to wear that makes you feel good, no matter your financial situation. So we were excited to see the news this week that the city has opened up a new community resource called ALX Closet that will provide brand-new children’s clothing (along with toiletries and diapers) to any family that needs it.
But the organizations who put this together—Center for Alexandria’s Children and The Fund for Alexandria’s Child—need community members to pitch in so the kids have something to choose from other than the hundreds of unworn Biden 2024 size XL adult tees that the Alexandria Democratic Committee is suddenly trying to offload. Please donate if you can!
Housekeeping Note
We’re taking a summer break for a couple of weeks, but we’ll be back at the end of August with our commemorative one year anniversary issue!! Unbelievable, where did the time go. Also today is Becky’s [FILE NOT FOUND]th birthday, so wish her a happy one in the comments or on social media!
You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.
Happy anniversary. I hope we can count on you all to help keep us up on top of the circus that is ACPS this fall (I say this with love as a proud ACPS parent)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY that map stresses me the F out I’ll be honest