The swing of a children’s playground, under the July sun, can reach 85.4 degrees Celsius. It is not a theoretical data, but the temperature recorded on a rubber mat in the Argonne district in Milan. A number that, alone, tells a wider and more complex story: that of cities that overheat in an unequal way, creating a new and invisible social fracture defined as “cooling poverty”, poverty of cooling.
To photograph this reality is the Citizen Science campaign “What a hot it makes! Against Cooling Poverty: City + Fresque, city + right”, made by Legambiente with the support of the energy counter. The investigation, conducted between the end of June and the end of July 2025, analyzed 10 neighborhoods in 5 champion cities – Rome, Naples, Bologna and Palermo – different urban realities for construction and social composition, but united by a common enemy: the increasingly intense heat waves.
The data: when the surface is more of the air
Legambiente volunteers, armed with thermolet and thermoigrometer (which simultaneously measures both the temperature and the relative humidity of the air), took 171 thermographies and analyzed over 500 surfaces. If the average environmental temperature detected was 35.4 ° C, with a peak of 43 ° C in Secondigliano (Naples), it is the heat of the surfaces that arouse the greater concern. The average stands at 45.6 ° C, but the peaks recorded an average of 75.5 ° C. The highest value, as mentioned, in Milan, while the minimum of peaks was 63.7 ° C on a boat brick flooring, Bologna.
These data are not abstract. They impact directly on the perceived temperature and contribute to the phenomenon of “tropical nights”, when the mercury column does not drop below 20 ° C, making the rest and recovery of the body impossible from thermal stress. As Marietersa Imparato, Legambiente’s climatic justice manager, explains, “the high temperatures that can reach the surfaces exposed to the sun affect both the surrounding environment temperature and on that perceived by people with important consequences on the health of the most vulnerable citizens”.
Monitoring has scientifically demonstrated what daily experience suggests: the shadow is a fundamental infrastructure. A play area for children goes from an average of 70.9 ° C under the sun to 35 ° C if shaded, with a difference of almost 36 degrees. The asphalt drops from 55.2 ° C to 31.2 ° C (-24 ° C), and even the bodywork of a car goes from 68.2 ° C to 37.5 ° C. Differences that determine the livability or unavailability of a public space.
“Cooling Poverty”: a new inequality
The problem is not only environmental, but deeply social. “Cooling Poverty” is the inability to find refreshment, both at home for those who cannot afford an air conditioner, and in public spaces. In the most fragile neighborhoods, often characterized by a high housing density, a scarcity of green areas and building materials that accumulate warmth, citizens are more exposed. “The heat waves affect, where, where the inequalities are more evident, the existing fragility,” says Silvia Pedrotti, responsible for the Energy Banco.
This thermal inequality is the heart of the problem. A tree -lined avenue, a fountain or a park make the difference between a neighborhood that offers shelter and one that becomes a heat trap. It is no coincidence that the Ministry of Health, according to a re -elaboration of Legambiente, has issued 203 level 3 alerts for torrid heat between the end of May and July 2025, an increase compared to the 153 of the same period of the previous year.
The proposals for fresh and more right cities
The investigation is not limited to the complaint, but advances four concrete proposals to reverse the course.
“It is necessary to change approach to regenerate roads, buildings and public spaces of our cities in terms of climatic adaptation,” says Giorgio Gampetti, general manager of Legambiente. A change that, as evidenced by the investigation, is no longer postponed and must combine environmental sustainability with social justice, to guarantee everyone, and not only to those who can afford it, the right to a fresher city.
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