{"id":109999,"date":"2025-08-01T10:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T10:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109999\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T10:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T10:23:09","slug":"ahead-of-the-2028-olympics-l-a-moves-to-expand-shade-across-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/109999\/","title":{"rendered":"Ahead of the 2028 Olympics, L.A. moves to expand shade across the city"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As heat waves grow longer and more intense across Southern California<\/a>, the absence of shade is becoming a serious public health concern \u2014 but vast stretches of Los Angeles remain dangerously exposed. <\/p>\n

Research shows shaded areas can have a \u201cheat burden\u201d \u2014 a combined measure of temperature, humidity and wind \u2014 up to 68\u2013104\u2009degrees less<\/a> than nearby sun-exposed areas. Quality shade can also reduce UV radiation exposure by up to 75%<\/a> and help prevent up to 50% of emergency-room visits during heat events<\/a>. <\/p>\n

With the 2028 Olympics and other global events set for L.A. on the horizon, a coalition of universities, nonprofits and local agencies has launched ShadeLA<\/a>, an initiative to expand cooling infrastructure across the city. Led by USC Dornsife Public Exchange \u2014 a program that connects researchers with policymakers \u2014 and UCLA\u2019s Luskin Center for Innovation, the project is focused not only on where shade is needed most, but also on how to build it in ways that last.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe climate that made L.A. so idyllic and attractive in the 20th century is now becoming deadly for many of our neighbors,\u201d said Edith de Guzman, adjunct assistant professor at UCLA\u2019s Department of Urban Planning and co-lead on the project. \u201cAnd simultaneously, our city is shrinking \u2014 because we can use less of it. There are fewer places we can be safely and in a way that meets thermal comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

ShadeLA brings together agencies such as L.A. County\u2019s Chief Sustainability Office, the County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and a network of nonprofits including City Plants, North East Trees and TreePeople.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need a lot of different people coming together to work on the issue,\u201d said Monica Dean, director of the Climate and Sustainability Practice at USC Dornsife Public Exchange and co-lead on the project. \u201cAnd we also don\u2019t need to just add shade. We also need to take care of and maintain the shade we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike many other past greening campaigns around Los Angeles \u2014 such as Million Trees LA<\/a>, which aimed to plant a million trees in a decade \u2014 ShadeLA has not set a strict goal for the number of trees or structures it hopes to build. <\/p>\n

Instead, the initiative emphasizes what it calls \u201cthe quality of shade,\u201d using new high-resolution mapping tools to calculate how much usable, ground-level coverage people actually experience in public spaces where they walk, wait or gather. Those data help participants decide what projects to pursue in order to make the biggest difference, whether that\u2019s planting a large-canopy tree on one corner, redesigning a bus stop to provide more overhead cover or creating a pop-up cooling zone in a high-traffic area.<\/p>\n

Such projects are especially important as Los Angeles starts preparing for the 2028 Olympics, which will draw millions of additional people to the city. \u201cWe\u2019re really thinking of the 2028 Games and the preceding mega events as a point of leverage. We\u2019re hoping to have those events … spur Los Angeles to do the right thing and have a legacy,\u201d De Guzman said.<\/p>\n

That approach builds on the USC Urban Trees Initiative<\/a>, a five-year research effort that mapped shade gaps across the city and identified specific areas where new trees could have the greatest effect. In Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights, for example, the study found room for nearly 100 additional trees in Hazard Park, more than 50 at Murchison Street Elementary School, 22 at Hillside Elementary, and over 180 within the Ramona Gardens public housing complex, where residents live next to busy freeways with little natural cover. These areas, researchers say, are among the highest-need zones for planting because they combine high pedestrian activity, low canopy cover and limited access to air conditioning.<\/p>\n

TreePeople, a longtime leader in Southern California\u2019s urban forestry movement, has outlined plans for thousands of new trees in the region \u2014 not as part of a citywide quota, but as one piece of ShadeLA\u2019s broader push to create high-quality, lasting shade. The group also facilitates volunteer planting events and hosts workshops to teach people how to help the trees survive. <\/p>\n

As Marcos Trinidad, TreePeople\u2019s senior director of forestry, noted, planting trees alone won\u2019t solve the problem if the city and Olympic organizers don\u2019t commit resources to long-term care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s missing right now is a firm commitment from the city and Olympic organizers \u2014 a number, a budget, something we can leverage,\u201d Trinidad said. \u201cWithout that, we risk falling into the same pattern we\u2019ve seen before, where trees get planted without resources to make sure they survive. We don\u2019t want to just put numbers on paper \u2014 we want a living, lasting canopy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, he is optimistic about ShadeLA. \u201cOur hope is that the collaboration will remain and be the vehicle that we can use for increasing canopy shade past the Olympics,\u201d Trinidad said. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, project leaders hope that the initiative changes how people see the city \u2014 leading them to recognize shade not just as a comfort, but also as essential infrastructure for community health and resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want us to start thinking as Angelenos \u2014 to sort of train our eyes to see our neighborhoods differently and see where there are opportunities\u201d for shade, Dean said. \u201cBecause the truth is, each of us has some agency and some capacity to be stewards of this civic resource.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As heat waves grow longer and more intense across Southern California, the absence of shade is becoming a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":110000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[70035,1582,276,2451,24965,2961,70036,224,2444,5337,70037,70038,8622,13009,3777,8744,26298,43347,11441,70034],"class_list":{"0":"post-109999","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-additional-people","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-city","12":"tag-initiative","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-local-agency","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-times","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-marcos-trinidad","19":"tag-new-tree","20":"tag-nonprofit","21":"tag-number","22":"tag-olympics","23":"tag-project","24":"tag-researcher","25":"tag-shade","26":"tag-tree","27":"tag-treepeople"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114953023714068295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}