about our research

Urban heat raises a host of health problems. Heatwaves, exacerbated by urban heat islands, are torrid manifestations of how high temperatures disrupt city life, bringing issues of climate injustice into stark relief. Yet extreme temperatures are only one aspect of the ever-evolving relationship between urban heat and health, one that has some positive features, such as summer festivals or swimming outdoors.

Melting Metropolis brings together a team of scholars, a community engagement manager, and a research artist to understand better the past and present of urban heat and health.

With a focus on sensory, community, and cultural experiences in postwar London, New York, and Paris, we investigate how city dwellers have experienced heat and sought to mitigate its impact on their health and well-being. We aim to move beyond the widespread focus on “climate resilience” to uncover the multiple responses to urban heat and health during an era of climate breakdown. 

our RESEARCH aims

  • To develop and deepen understandings of changing experiences of urban heat through engagement with affected communities and historical sources.

  • To explore, within climate justice and transnational frameworks, how Londoners, New Yorkers, and Parisians have responded to formal (i.e., public health, municipal) policies and practices related to heat and health. 

  • To investigate how Londoners, New Yorkers, and Parisians have embraced heat and sought to protect themselves from it. 

  • To consider how a historical perspective on heat can inform current or planned interventions into improving urban health that go beyond “resilience.”

  • To develop creative and reflective spaces that encourage a reconsideration of our relationship with sun in an era of climate crisis.

our RESEARCH CITIES

  • In London, our oral history research is investigating everyday experiences of heat both in the present and the past. Whether people love or loathe the high temperatures, we're keen to hear their stories of summer in the city. What’s it like at home when the temperature rises? Where do people go to soak up the sun or escape the heat? Initially centred on Somers Town, the oral history work stream has now expanded across the capital and is working with a range of individuals, community organisations and policymakers.

  • In New York, our work begins at Queens College, City University of New York, where we collaborate with a team of undergraduate research assistants, neighborhood-based institutions, and community members. With historians leading the project, we explore city and state archives, where we research heat-related questions pertaining to the built environment, urban energy and transportation systems, and public health-related outcomes, past and present. We then work with, and gain inspiration from, artists and local partners who create inspiring new ways to think about heatscapes, visualize its effects through different media, and ask unexpected questions about how living in the "urban heat island" has changed over time.

  • In Paris, our archival research seeks to better understand the daily lives of Parisians, in their homes and in public spaces, during the summer in the past. We analyse historical sources, which include photographs, artwork, official reports, health documents, and newspaper articles, to dive into the lived, embodied, and sensory experiences of urbanites. What effects did the heat have on their bodies and minds? How did they cope with, embrace, or protect themselves from high temperatures? What new practices, cultures, and policies emerged as a result? Our archival research considers those questions across the 20 arrondissements that make up the city and from the perspective of individuals and state officials.

  • BRISTOL

    Ethnographic research in Bristol seeks to explore current everyday experiences of heat and health in vulnerable urban communities. Bristol (a “green city”) allows a comparison of a British provincial city to compare with London. We use creative methods to understand lived realities of urban heat, promote community engagement and develop impact.

    PORT OF SPAIN

    Through a University of Liverpool-funded PhD studentship, Melting Metropolis is also researching the geographies of health and environmental change through the study of heat in Port of Spain, Trinidad. This interdisciplinary study examines the past and present of the urban heat island effect and evaluates creative approaches to human geography scholarship on urban health in a changing world.

Melting Metropolis is funded by a Wellcome Discovery Award and runs from 2023 to 2029. We are based at the University of Liverpool and Queens College, City University of New York.  

Our project partners are the Living Centre in Somers Town, London, and Queens Memory Project, New York. We are also collaborating with Urban Archive.