![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/WestSideNeighborhood_UrbanHeatStudy_AirConditioning_AITechnologyResearch_04_09.29.2025_AmberEsparza..jpeg\")
West Side resident Ricardo Rodriguez says relying on individual air conditioning units on warmer days is costly for him and his family. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\nRicardo and Laura Rodriguez have lived in their Westside home for 36 years. Like many houses in the city\u2019s historic Westside neighborhood, the couple\u2019s home lacks central air conditioning, relying on individual units to fight off San Antonio heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to have all of them on at one time, because those bills [add up],\u201d Ricardo, who is disabled, said. \u201cWith one check a month, it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
In their living room, a small white sensor sucks in air and measures temperature and air quality. Another hangs above their porch outside. When the sensors shine red, indicating poor air quality, the couple opens their windows and turns fans on.<\/p>\n
West Side resident Ricardo Rodriguez says relying on individual air conditioning units on warmer days is costly for him and his family. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
The sensors came courtesy of University of Texas at San Antonio <\/strong>researchers studying extreme heat throughout the city. Their research so far has been focused on the West Side, a historically underserved community and urban heat island<\/a>, where temperatures can soar and turn poorly built homes into furnaces due to an overabundance of concrete and lack of green space.<\/p>\n The researchers are using the sensors, artificial intelligence and \u201cdigital twin\u201d technology to map out how heat and poor air quality is felt in the neighborhood, and how to best mitigate the impacts with limited resources.<\/p>\n Esteban L\u00f3pez Ochoa, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at UT San Antonio and lead researcher on the project, said that indoor temperatures in some homes can rise above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe did surveys on the residents, asking them how you\u2019re feeling, what kind of chronic conditions do they have?\u201d Ochoa said. \u201cMany of them have reported that year over year, they are having heat strokes, and they\u2019re just waiting for the next one to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Heat equity<\/p>\n Ochoa, who grew up in Chile and earned his doctorate in Illinois, said that he had never experienced extreme heat like this until he moved to San Antonio in 2012. He was astonished to learn that some communities in the city lived through the sweltering heat with precarious to non-existent air conditioning in their homes.<\/p>\n Heat maps<\/a> created using the researchers\u2019 data have shown that the inner neighborhoods of San Antonio just outside downtown tend to fare worse when it comes to the urban heat island effect.<\/p>\n The elevated temperatures are felt disproportionately in disadvantaged communities where poor housing conditions offer little relief from the Texas heat.<\/p>\n For many residents, running AC constantly can come with \u201can avalanche of problems,\u201d said Luissana Santibanez, an organizer with the Coalition for Dignified Housing, \u201cbecause then they have really high electricity bills, over $400 a month sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n The first phase of Ochoa\u2019s research involved taking stock of housing conditions on the West Side, and developing a rating system that could predict which homes were more likely to be demolished. The houses in the poorest conditions \u2014 with less insulation, poor foundations, cracking windows and an array of other issues \u2014 would at times get hotter inside than the outside temperature, Ochoa said.<\/p>\n When the sun went down and the asphalt stopped radiating heat, residents\u2019 homes would stay hot into the night. \u201cThey couldn\u2019t get a break from the heat,\u201d Ochoa said.<\/p>\n The researchers then started placing small, $300 sensors inside and outside of residents\u2019 homes measuring air quality and temperature, alerting residents when the air quality or temperature reach certain levels.<\/p>\n The sensors also offer researchers better, more specific ground-level data. Instead of relying on satellite data, the researchers\u2019 heat maps and city-wide temperature calculations incorporate specific measurements taken at the neighborhood level.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like the physician takes your temperature, we\u2019re going to put thermometers basically across the city,\u201d Ochoa said. \u201cI really wanted to see what are the interior conditions versus the exterior conditions, and that\u2019s why we wanted these sensors to really help us work on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Digital twins<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/WestSideNeighborhood_UrbanHeatStudy_AirConditioning_AITechnologyResearch_08_09.29.2025_AmberEsparza..jpeg\")
Ricardo Rodriguez and his family used to live in this house situated in an urban heat island area on the West side of San Antonio before moving to his current home across the street in the \u201990s. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/WestSideNeighborhood_UrbanHeatStudy_AirConditioning_AITechnologyResearch_02_09.29.2025_AmberEsparza..jpeg\")
West Side resident Ricardo Rodriguez talks about the PurpleAir sensor that monitors air quality and temperatures installed on his porch at his home on Sept. 29, 2025. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n
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Esteban L\u00f3pez Ochoa, a UT-San Antonio associate professor of urban and regional planning, demonstrates an AI program used to map a \u201cdigital twin\u201d of resident homes for their research. Credit: Amber Esparza \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n