In this episode, Professor Stephen Goldsmith interviews Marta Segura, the Chief Heat Officer for Los Angeles, about developing climate mitigation strategies for the city, the importance of cross-agency collaboration, and how both data and community guide her work.
In this episode host Professor Stephen Goldsmith talks with the Chief Heat Officer for the city of Los Angeles, Marta Segura, about her background as an environmental justice advocate and the city's response to extreme heat as a primary climate hazard. The conversation covers the use of mapping to address health disparities, prioritizing climate-resilient infrastructure investments, and how she fosters cross-agency collaboration, highlighting the crucial role of data-driven strategies in building resilient and equitable cities.
Music credit: Summer-Man by Ketsa
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Betsy Gardner:
This is Betsy Gardner, editor of Data-Smart City Solutions at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. And you're listening to Data-Smart City Pod, where we bring on the top innovators and experts to discuss the future of cities and how to become data smart.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Welcome back. This is Stephen Goldsmith, Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University with another one of our podcasts with leading local and state officials.
Today we're delighted to host Marta Segura, who is the Chief Heat Officer in Los Angeles and also the Director of the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. Welcome, Marta.
Marta Segura:
Thank you, Steve, for having me. Really appreciate it.
Stephen Goldsmith:
You've got an interesting and illustrious background. So before we get to your LA job, take a couple minutes and tell us about your non-profit work and your advocacy background.
Marta Segura:
Well, I mean, I think it all started when I was a kid and we were being sprayed by pesticides and lived near freeways and our home was demolished, so that got me thinking like, "What can I do about this?"
So I have a background, I have a Bachelor's and a Master's in Environmental Health Sciences, but when I discovered there was a whole environmental movement, a whole environmental justice movement, I wanted to be part of that. And so I'm also an advocate for environmental justice.
But I was really fortunate to work with philanthropy, non-profit organizations like Communities for a Better Environment, and also academia, UCLA, in the purpose of creating the changes that we need in order to have healthy thriving communities for everybody.
Stephen Goldsmith:
I want to in a few minutes come back to the relationship between the city and UCLA as it relates to heat, but other than the obvious that it's hot in Los Angeles, why did the mayor make you one of the country's first two or three heat officers? How'd you get to be Chief Heat Officer? Was there an event that prompted that? What was that all about?
Marta Segura:
I think there was a growing interest in climate emergencies, and being a city that addressed climate emergencies, in about a year after I was hired as the Director of the Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, there were quite a few good investigative articles, not just about Los Angeles, but about the world situation and how extreme heat was not just LA's primary climate hazard, but the primary climate hazard for many cities and many nations.
And they had numbers for us. The UCLA heat map came out. We had the numbers for excess deaths, excess hospitalizations as a result of extreme heat and heat wave incidents in Los Angeles. So obviously that kind of data, that kind of information made it very visible and tangible for our city council to recognize that extreme heat was what was killing more people and sending more people to the hospital, and that that was unacceptable.
So it was a combination of things, but the culmination was the outreach in the council, knowing the actual numbers and the information and the data that extreme heat was in fact our primary climate risk and climate hazard and climate emergency, and they wanted to fix that problem as soon as possible and prevent those really preventable deaths and hospitalizations. But then that leads us back to climate adaptation and climate mitigation. But I think that was the catalyst, Steve.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Thanks. So let's think a little bit about the UCLA mapping.
Marta Segura:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Goldsmith:
One of the reasons that you are good at your job and you're so passionate about your job is the fact that the disproportionate impact falls on under-resourced communities, primarily communities of color.
Marta Segura:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Goldsmith:
So how did you use mapping and visualizations to tell that story?
Marta Segura:
Yeah, I thought it was a really important story to tell. So when I realized that these health disparities existed in the areas that were most pollution-burdened, had higher chronic illness, were also low income, so those low income apartments and units also don't have AC for the most part. So they were really super vulnerable.
And then the other thing that you could add to that is that many of them are outdoor workers working in gardening, working in construction, working to clean up the city. So the combination of all those factors makes them more vulnerable, and that kind of health disparity data helps the city to identify where we should accelerate climate infrastructure investments.
And we typically don't use health disparity data at the city level because most cities don't have public health departments. But I wanted health to be a centerpiece of how we measured this information and what we mapped.
And we also mapped resilience centers, hydration stations, bus shelters, tree canopy, and that's really important for our public to know and have visible in front of them so that they could use those resources while they're walking to school, while they're walking to work. And also we share that information, that mapping information, with all of the departments and what we call the 3-1-1 Line. The dispatchers there now know where to direct people for resources and refuge from extreme heat.
So it tells the disparity data, it tells the city strategically where to invest its climate investments first and foremost, and it also helps us measure whether those investments have been and will be useful. So we want to really make sure that we correlate climate infrastructure investments with improvements for the public and improvements in public health.
Stephen Goldsmith:
That's great. Well, so let's think about Marta Segura, the activist, who looks at a map and says, "No trees in that neighborhoods, community of color. In fact, there's not even any tops on the bus stops. There's no shelters for the buses."
So you pick up your map and how do you influence the city or the transit agencies' expenditures to mitigate that inequity? What do you do with that as your, let's call you an internal advocate, I know previously you're external, but internal advocate inside the city for environmental justice, Chief Heat Officer, now what do you do when you see a problem?
Marta Segura:
Well, I mean, I'm constantly looking for what the community is saying. So we've engaged the community through our Climate Equity LA Series. We've had focus groups, but we also have conversations in town halls. So we have an ear listening to community voices. And for example, for bus shelters, you mentioned bus shelters.
There were quite a few community-based organizations that had already assessed the disparity of bus shelters across the city. In fact, the city of LA had already assessed, by the time I got here, the disparities of bus shelters across the city. We just lacked the funds, right?
So for me, it was easy to marry the community voices with a recognition within the city that there was a disparity because that disparity was recognized but we didn't have the funding. But now we had the political will of the council, political will of those building the bus shelters, placing the bus shelters, and connecting it with the political will and the advocacy of the organizations that we're pushing for this change.
So recently, I'm happy to report that the city of LA has about $50 million now for bus shelters. And Metro who we collaborate with is also adding another 50 million for their bus shelters which overlap with ours, right? Metro addresses the entire county, where we are the city of LA, but most of those bus shelters are actually in the city of Los Angeles since we're their biggest city.
So I think it's as a result of our advocacy, the community's advocacy, these internal conversations of how to use this map and how to use this data and how to use this information. So we do have a bus shelter map, right? And now we have the money to accelerate that investment and put those bus shelters where they're most needed. So that's a really good example.
And we're doing the same thing with tree canopy, and we're doing the same thing with hydration stations, but I would like the city, if we don't have $100 million to spend, to take a place-based approach, where we're investing first and foremost in the areas that have the highest need, and then we move out from there so that we are reducing the greatest disparities, reducing GHGs where they need to be reduced the most. Because if we have higher pollution in those areas, that means we have more emissions in those areas, and that's an opportunity to address the GHG inventory and also address health disparities and also address climate mitigation and adaptation while you're mitigating extreme heat.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Yeah. Well, that's a lot of stuff in that last paragraph. Let me follow up on a couple. So let's deal with tree canopies for a second. Are you able to see the degree of forestry, trees, canopies organized by spatial equity, right? Can you look at an equity lens on your tree foliage for purposes of making recommendations?
Marta Segura:
Yes. In fact, we're really fortunate to have an Urban Forest Officer that I work with closely. Her name is Rachel Malarich. So she has mapped the inequities of tree shade canopy, and we're working directly with USC and with Google, both of whom have mapped tree canopy across the city of LA.
And she has strategically identified through this equity lens where we can begin our next phase of tree canopy investments to address where we really need trees and where we have dense populations that need the coverage of those trees and also all the other co-benefits that tree provides like not just cooling, but also the mitigation of pollution, also ensuring that there is transpiration and that the soil is healthier.
There's so many benefits to trees. I'm really excited about how we're aligning with Rachel's mapping, which is also through GIS mapping. And that's been super helpful to push for that kind of investment for the city of LA.
I think all cities still really need maintenance funds, because once you plant a tree, you really have to maintain it. So that's really the next critical level. And we can tell that story with mapping and we can tell that story with data as well, but we really have to shift the thinking about tree plantings to make it a more equitable strategy but also fund the maintenance of the longevity of those trees.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Are you able to get anonymized child asthma or senior cardiac events, things that are related to heat and air pollution, are you able to get that as part of your mapping process to identify communities where you can make the most difference?
Marta Segura:
Well, what's interesting, and we just spoke to LA County and they have a Department of Public Health, and their Department of Public Health collects data from hospitals in the region. And the state of California also collects data from hospitals in the region.
And in fact, that's why Dr. Eisenman's expertise is so critical here. He can potentially narrow down these hospitalizations and these excess deaths to the type of incident, whether it was cardiac arrest or whether it was an asthmatic incident. Hospitals have that information and they can't anonymize it. We just have had trouble getting it frequently, if that makes sense. So it takes a lot of effort to collect this data and to make sure that it is HIPAA compliant, and then it can be released to an entity like the city or UCLA.
But there's a lot of great movement in that direction. In fact, we recently had a conversation with the Department of Health and Human Services, and the secretary, Xavier Becerra, is extremely interested in addressing extreme heat and the impacts of climate. And they have come up with some national dashboards to include what they call syndromized data on emergency responses during heat waves across the nation.
So fortunately, because Secretary Xavier Becerra and some of his team are from California, they are interested in ensuring that they provide the resources so that we can provide that syndromatic anonymized data to be more useful in determining whether our investments are having an impact. But it takes a village and it takes an effort, and we're not all there yet.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Okay. Yeah. You've got a pretty big village too. I'm impressed with your language, right? Your ability to kind of focus on important issues and how to address those. Tell me how you use mapping your personality and your position to create cross-agency participation in resolving heat, right? You're Chief Heat Officer, but you're in one department but you're trying to influence another department. Tell me how that works.
Marta Segura:
Well, I'm definitely motivated. I'm passionate about the work that I do, and I think that is conveyed in my conversations with others. And I think that also pushes me to work with other departments and collaborate with them in ways that I'm not just seeking their support, but I'm seeking to support them. And I'm seeking opportunities outside of the city of LA to see if we can identify funding sources.
So I think my enthusiasm and my collaborative approach and desire to find financing and funding for the work that we're doing together is really helpful. I think if all of us had that approach, and to be totally honest with you, I have many great colleagues at the city of LA who do have that approach. But if all of us had that approach, I think we could accomplish a lot more.
And so it's partially my enthusiasm, but the other part is I have a lot of support from the city council and from the mayor's office, and I know not every city has that, but I want to be completely transparent that that is definitely what has helped me in my position. Getting the organizational support and political support from members of the city council and the mayor's office is a helpful way to work with other departments across the city of Los Angeles.
And then I think those other departments are also very savvy and strategic, and they understand that a lot of these climate infrastructure dollars that are being offered by the federal government and the state government are for climate adaptation and climate mitigation, which means heat mitigation as well. And they want any help that they can get to ensure that Los Angeles gets its fair share of those dollars.
Because even if we got every dollar that we thought we deserve from the federal government, it still would not be enough to cover the kinds of energy systems transformations, climate adaptation and infrastructure investments that we need. So we actually have to be super creative and identify other ways to collaborate across jurisdictions, like I mentioned with Metro.
And I'm currently working on a exploration with the city of Santa Monica. They have some of their buses transit through our city streets, right? They want to plant trees and they want to pay for it, and they want to pay for the maintenance of those trees.
So I'm navigating the city to see what we can do to accomplish being able to work with the city of Santa Monica and their big blue bus in planting trees near their bus stops. That's a win-win situation right there that would come out of their budget, not ours.
So that's an example of multi-jurisdictional thinking and the way that the city of LA and other cities can maximize their resources.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Yeah, that's a great answer. So Marta, there's a lot of stuff you're doing. Some is complex. Green investments are a little bit complex, permeable surfaces are really complex. And I mean, there's a whole range of things, but let's just take a really direct practical solution. Tell us how you managed to put up 200 cooling centers, and how did you tell the public where they were?
Marta Segura:
Well, I mean, the reality is this, we already had 73 advertised cooling centers that we talked about, and about 20 of them are what we call augmented cooling centers.
When I came in, I saw that the libraries were not being properly conveyed as cooling centers. So when we added all of our libraries, then we got to that number. So it was more a challenge of communication and internal navigation of resources to ensure that the public understood how many cooling centers, basically public facilities, the city of LA had that could serve as cooling centers. So now we have libraries, Reagan Park facilities, some senior centers all operating as what we call cooling centers or slash resilience centers.
And libraries are ideal because they already serve as resilience centers, they provide multiple social services or information to social services, literacy programs. Some of our libraries already have social workers.
So when we're talking about community resilience, it's not just resilience from the climate, it's resilience from the economic conditions in which they live to make that community much more resilient economically through their health and through climate.
Those facilities already existed, we just made them visible. And if they're invisible to the public, they're not being used. So communication was key, and those maps were key to ensure that the public and other elected officials and other city leaders and other county leaders understood that those resources were there for them.
Stephen Goldsmith:
Well, that's a great way to close. I love the idea that you're helping people personally be resilient in these difficult and challenging times.
This is Stephen Goldsmith, Professor of Urban Policy at the Bloomberg Center at Harvard's Kennedy School, talking to Marta Segura, the Chief Heat Officer of Los Angeles, about how she's using her voice, her advocacy, her narrative and her mapping to cause better opportunities, less extreme heat, and a more resilient city in LA. Thank you very much, Marta.
Marta Segura:
Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you. And yeah, communication is key. Thank you.
Betsy Gardner:
If you liked this podcast, please visit us@datassmartcities.org. Find us on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast was hosted by Steven Goldsmith and produced by me, Betsy Gardner. Thanks for listening.