It's a catchy tune, but The Lovin Spoonful's "Summer in the City" doesn't paint the picture of an appealing environment with its description of a sidewalk as "hotter than a match head." New research from Northeastern University may offer relief from those conditions, however, finding that extreme heat and air pollution don't necessarily go hand in hand when the concrete jungle is made a little more green.

Figure 4. Oakland/Berkeley, CA and Detroit, MI capture the variation in the organization of multihazard exposure, hazard driver infrastructure, and socioeconomic inequities in exposure possible across cities. Oakland/Berkeley (a) has many communities experiencing multihazard exposure, which are (b) often home to low-income populations because of (c ) a combination of high street density with few trees. Detroit (d) has few places with multihazard exposure that (e) are not necessarily low-income communities, in part because (f) communities with high street density often have substantial tree canopy.