Planning Professor Ladd Keith Discusses Extreme Heat and Climate Change on America Adapts Podcast

Ladd Keith, assistant professor of planning and chair of the Sustainable Built Environments undergraduate degree program in the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, was featured in the January 12, 2020 edition of America Adopts: The Climate Change Podcast.

In the podcast, Keith and host Doug Parsons discussed extreme heat in the context of climate change, how urban heat will get worse and what cities are doing to plan for rising heat, how extreme heat impacts social and climate justice, how urban planning is evolving to include adaptation, integrating extreme heat planning into emergency management systems, communicating the threat of extreme heat to the general public and more.

Keith, who joined CAPLA in 2009, is an interdisciplinary researcher working at the intersection of urban planning and climate science and explores how climate action planning can make more sustainable and resilient cities. He is currently the principal investigator of a NOAA-funded research project evaluating the use of urban heat maps in urban planning and is co-investigator on a project developing community climate profiles tailored to local needs. In addition to founding and leading the Sustainable Built Environments program, Keith teaches public participation and dispute resolution and planning for urban resilience. He contributed to the development and analysis of a number of land use and development regulations, comprehensive plans, hazard mitigation plans and climate action plans and recently completed a full eight-year term on the City of Tucson's Planning Commission.