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In this research <\/a>conducted by Dr. Magee and his students, it is apparent that there are three hotspots all within the vicinity of downtown and inner-city Trenton. Next to the inner city are the coal deposits which sit near other plants and factories, and a little farther from there, there are the downtown buildings with offices and companies, most notably corporate buildings with black rooftops. While these areas show spikes, the inner city of Trenton is a collective hotspot and is more centered compared to the blue areas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The effects of urban heat islands vary but mainly include hotter surface temperatures, more respiratory difficulties, and increased risk for heat-related illness. In particular, concrete and pavement become incredibly scalding during the summer, with surface temperatures sometimes reaching double that of the air temperature. Last June, Dr. Kevin Foster from the Arizona Burn Center warned local residents of the severity of hot pavement through a press release.<\/a> \u201cIt doesn\u2019t take much time to get a full-thickness or third-degree burn when exposed to hot pavement. because if you look at hot pavement or asphalt at two o\u2019clock in the afternoon in direct sunlight, the temperature is usually somewhere around 170 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of the danger that this phenomenon poses, it affects children and more vulnerable groups in urban communities differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a long-term resident of downtown Trenton, Latifah Bentley has noticed a generational shift due to climate change. \u201cWhen my kids were young, all the other kids used to run around all summer playing tag and hopscotch,\u2019 she laments. \u201cI asked some of the parents and they force their kids to stay inside with A\/C when it\u2019s too hot. That makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI definitely notice a difference when I travel for work and when I\u2019m home. I think in the summer it\u2019s cooler where I work (Pennington) because it\u2019s fewer roads and more trees.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gloria Martin, an Elementary School Teacher from Elizabeth, also commented on the effects this has had on the youth. \u201cDuring the hotter months, we have to have recess inside. The ground gets so hot, so when kids fall and scrape their knees they get burned.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The town of Elizabeth, New Jersey is much like Trenton regarding their shared struggles with urban heat island effects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A proposed method for combating and mitigating this crisis is to repaint pavements and roads with \u2018reflective\u2019 coatings, rather than building them to retain heat. Dr. Hessam Azari Jafari from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub stated in a 2020 MIT Climate Portal<\/a> Journal: The so-called \u201ccool pavement\u201d strategy is currently practiced in a few cities, such as Los Angeles, by implementing reflective coatings and\/or brighter-color materials in the pavement mixtures. These properties allow more sunlight to be reflected from a pavement\u2019s surface, and less to be absorbed by its mass.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n