Cities for Smart Surfaces

Smart surfaces help cities deliver life-saving heat and flood reductions, save money, and address historical inequities across metropolitan regions.

Our Work With Cities

We're partnering with 10 cities across the US to facilitate the adoption of Smart Surfaces at the metropolitan level and working with communities in those regions to support community-led, local Smart Surface implementation projects.

We will be working with a diverse set of cities across the country that have strong goals aligned with delivering environmental justice, improving health outcomes, and saving money.

Map of the 10 participating cities: Boston, Charlotte, Columbia, Atlanta, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Portland.

SSC analysis conducted with the City of Baltimore found that citywide Smart Surface adoption could result in:

5+ degrees Fahrenheit of city-wide cooling

10:1 benefit-cost ratio

Millions of tons of CO2e reduced

$ Billions in net financial benefits to cities & residents

What are Smart Surfaces?

Cool roof, green roof, porous pavement, solar PV, reflective pavement, trees and rain gardens, carbon-sequestering concrete blocks, and combined solar PV and green roof.

For this project, our Coalition will support city staff and local organizations with:

Data: Detailed satellite imagery, analysis, and mapping of resilience opportunities metropolitan area-wide, with accompanying micro-meteorological heat models
Education: Community outreach and city department-wide engagement around Smart Surface technologies and their many benefits
Benefit-Cost Analysis and Web Tool: An online, city-customized benefit-cost analysis tool city staff and community leaders can use to quantify and communicate the impacts of implementing Smart Surfaces
Funding Guidance: Work with city staff to identify federal infrastructure funding opportunities and develop effective applications to secure federal funding for implementation projects identified through the initiative
Policy Frameworks: Guidance and templates to support the integration of Smart Surface strategies into city policies, plans, and projects
Community Engagement: Work with community members/organizations to understand how Smart Surfaces can serve their neighborhood-level needs, and provide support for local implementation projects.

City block made hotter by dense buildings, brick, metal, and dark impermeable asphalt.

Block made cooler by rain gardens and bioswales, trees, shade, and more reflective pavement.

Project timeline

2023 - 2026

FAQS

Please see the following materials for additional information on Smart Surfaces and the Smart Surfaces Coalition:
Please direct additional questions to Jacob Miller (jmiller@smartsurfacescoalition.org)
Waverley Street Foundation and The JPB Foundation are funding the Smart Surfaces Coalition in deploying its three-year, Cities for Smart Surfaces Project. The coalition’s team of public health, data analytics, environmental justice, energy efficiency and climate policy experts will assist cities in reaching our common goals for improving residents’ health and well-being.
We chose candidate cities based on factors like mayoral stability, size, population, disadvantaged census tracts, heat difference, and geographic diversity. Climate change's expansive effects led us to select cities representing a diverse set of challenges that are excited to learn about and implement Smart Surfaces in alignment with their existing climate and health goals.
The Coalition has been committed to rapid wide-spread adoption of Smart Surface interventions since its foundation in 2019. Some examples include analysis around the adoption of Smart Surfaces in Baltimore, MD, the linear urban forests project in Springfield, MA, regulatory mapping for the acceleration of adoption of Smart Surfaces in partnership with the Sabin Center at Columbia University, and development of cost-benefit rationale for the adoption of Smart Surfaces in India along with local partner TERI.
The Smart Surfaces Benefit-Cost Analysis tool allows cities to determine the cost and benefits of Smart Surface adoption in their cities. The tool allows users to select target adoption levels for different surface interventions and is tailored to each city. City officials can use the tool to draft informed policy.