How Reflective Paint Brings Down Scorching City Temperatures
Communities fight urban heat islands with technologies shielding roofs and pavement
3 min
Cities across the U.S. have found relief from this summer’s record-setting heat with the help of technologies that shield roofs, pavement and other surfaces from the sun’s scorching rays.
Some of these technologies have been around for more than a decade but are experiencing greater demand as global temperatures rise. Washington, D.C., for example, has built more than 3,200 green roofs covering 9 million square feet—up from about 300,000 square feet in 2006, according to federal and city officials.
Other technologies, such as super-reflective coatings for pavement, streets and windows, are just now becoming effective and affordable enough for widespread use.
The Los Angeles neighbourhood of Pacoima, a densely packed location sandwiched between freeways and an industrial area, has created a partnership with GAF, a New Jersey-based roofing manufacturer, to paint a basketball court, local park and neighbourhood streets with a reflective coating.
“There’s a lot of asphalt and lack of investment for tree canopies,” said Melanie Paola Torres, 24 years old, a community organiser with the group Pacoima Beautiful. “Given the fact that we are in an industrial zone, that contributes to the urban heat-island effect.”
The reflective coating has reduced air temperatures in the test area at 6 feet above ground by 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit during extreme heat days, and surface temperatures by 10 degrees, according to Jeff Terry, GAF’s vice president of corporate social responsibility and sustainability.
Sweltering conditions are worse in urban heat islands, which can be 10 degrees hotter than surrounding suburbs and occur as buildings, roads and other infrastructure absorb and re-emit the sun’s energy.
Cooling technologies mitigate this. Green roofs absorb heat before it penetrates the buildings beneath. Super-reflective coatings reflect the sun’s visible light and invisible infrared radiation away from surfaces to keep them cooler. And an ultra-white paint developed at Purdue University promises even more protection, although the product isn’t commercially available yet. Each strategy helps reduce energy use.
“The important thing is to help people cool their homes and workplaces affordably,” said Jane Gilbert, chief heat officer for Miami-Dade County, which experienced a record 46 straight days of a 100-degree-plus heat index this summer. “The more efficient we can make both the buildings and the AC systems themselves, the less we’re contributing both to greenhouse gases and also waste heat that goes to our urban heat islands.”
Miami is one of the most vulnerable cities to the urban heat-island effect, along with San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Seattle, according to an analysis by Climate Central, a New Jersey-based nonprofit that researches the effects of climate change. Its analysis found that 41 million people living in 44 cities face an urban heat-island effect of at least 8 degrees. Nine U.S. cities had at least one million people exposed to urban heat of 8 degrees or higher because of the local built environment.
To fight the heat, some cities are leveraging federal money and other incentives to persuade local builders to turn office buildings greener and cooler.
In Miami-Dade County, officials used federal funds to outfit 1,700 public housing units with new low-energy air-conditioning units. Local officials also offered a successful amendment to the Florida state building code requiring cool reflective roofs on all new commercial buildings beginning in 2024, and enrolled 150 structures in a voluntary energy-audit program to track improvements to cut energy use and keep temperatures down.
New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto and other cities are pushing green roofs with tax breaks and other incentives in an effort to lower energy bills and reduce ambient temperatures, according to Steven Peck, president of Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, a Toronto-based green-roof and -wall industry association. Peck said green roofs can be 30 to 40 degrees cooler than a similar-size blacktop roof, while also cutting waste heat from air-conditioning units.
In the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Pacoima, Torres says residents tell her the streets and playgrounds feel cooler since the reflective coating was completed in August 2022.
“The number-one thing that always comes up is the heat waves when you’re looking down the street,” Torres said. “They don’t see those anymore.”
The next step is to install reflective roofing material on a handful of homes as part of the neighbourhood cooling effort. “We want to keep stacking the solutions to overall create a cool community with multiple strategies,” Torres said.
Altering the urban landscape to adapt to extreme heat requires money and technical know-how, according to city leaders and academic experts. But they also acknowledge the need to keep people safe as global temperatures rise.
“Any one solution is not going to necessarily be able to address the entire problem, but by systematically applying solutions that work in each individual location, we can make a dent in the urban heat-island effect,” said David Sailor, professor of geographical sciences and urban planning at Arizona State University.
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Can its real-estate market continue to rise amid stock-market turmoil?
7 min
MANALAPAN, FLA.— The Deal-Closer. That’s what real-estate agent Jack Elkins jokingly calls the Hinckley picnic boat he docks on the Intracoastal Waterway in the Florida community of Manalapan.
From the road, many of Manalapan’s mansions are shrouded by plantings and foliage, but they are clearly visible from the water, Elkins explained. A boat ride is often the best way to show properties to the wealthy buyers now flocking to the tiny town.
On a recent afternoon, Elkins cruised down the Intracoastal in the The Deal-Closer, passing mansion after mansion, most with their own docks. “When I was a little kid, almost all of this was jungle,” said Elkins, 46, who spent much of his childhood in the area. “There were foxes and parrots and all these wild animals.”
Manalapan, a roughly 2.4-square-mile town with a population of about 400, is just south of glitzier Palm Beach.
While Manalapan has long drawn moneyed residents such as the singer Billy Joel, it has historically lacked the prestige—and price tags—of Palm Beach. That has changed dramatically over the past five years, however, thanks to a series of major home sales.
In 2022, for example, Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison paid $173 million for a historic Manalapan estate. And David MacNeil, the founder of the automotive-accessories manufacturer WeatherTech, has spent a combined $94 million over the past year on a pair of neighboring sites, with plans to build a megamansion there.
“People like Larry Ellison and David MacNeil, these individuals can afford to buy real estate anywhere in the world,” said local real-estate agent Nick Malinosky of Douglas Elliman . “Manalapan is not a second choice for them. It’s their first choice.”
On South Ocean Boulevard, Manalapan’s most affluent corridor, about 21 homes have traded for more than $20 million each since 2020. At least six have sold for $40 million or more, up from only one in that price range during the previous five years.
In 2021, eBay billionaire Jeffrey Skoll bought an ocean-to-Intracoastal estate for $89.93 million, while Joel’s longtime home sold last year for $42.6 million.
Now, however, it is unclear whether Manalapan’s hot streak can continue. Like luxury markets across the country, the town is contending with stock-market turmoil and the fallout from President Trump’s tariffs.
Like many Manalapan residents, local developer Stewart Satter, who is listing a yet-to-be-built spec home for $285 million, is a Trump supporter. During the 2024 election, Satter flew a giant Trump flag above the site.
But tariffs have “created a tremendous amount of uncertainty at the minimum, and that is not good for business,” Satter said. “It’s not good for real estate. People say, ‘Let’s wait. We’re not going to buy a house, we’re not going to build a house.’”
Hitting the big time
Elkins’ cuddly Native American Indian Dog, Bear, lounged on The Deal-Closer’s blue-and-white-striped seats as the boat zipped along the Intracoastal, passing glassy modern mansions and traditional Mediterranean estates.
To catch a glimpse of Ellison’s roughly 16-acre oceanfront estate, Elkins guided the Hinckley through the Boynton Inlet into the choppy Atlantic, where the sandy beach in front of Ellison’s property was visible.
Known as Gemini, the gargantuan mansion was once owned by the late publishing magnate William B. Ziff Jr., who brought in large plantings and trees from South America for the landscaping.
“When I was a little kid, barges were going by our house with these huge trees,” Elkins recalled.
Ellison has approved plans to add more homes to the estate. He also paid about $277 million last year for Manalapan’s Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, home to the members-only La Coquille Club, and talk is rife about how Ellison might upgrade the property. Ellison didn’t respond to requests for comment.
It’s a strange feeling, Elkins said, to see Manalapan hit the big time.
Before Covid, the town was often confused with its namesake: Manalapan, N.J. Tiny compared with Palm Beach, Manalapan developed much more slowly than its famous neighbour. It lacks the commercial infrastructure of Palm Beach, and its low-density zoning has kept it largely free of major condos or resorts.
When Satter, the developer, bought four empty lots in Manalapan in 2005, parts of the town looked like “just a mess of woods,” said his wife, Susan Satter. “I said, ‘Is this really how we want to invest our money?’”
Over the next decade, her husband built spec homes on three of the lots and sold them for a significant profit. He kept one, building a mansion there for himself and his wife.
“I thought I’d discovered a really special place,” said Stewart, who tested products for Walmart before turning to spec-home development. “If I had known what was going to happen, obviously, in the rear view mirror, I would have bought the whole town.”
The buyers of Satter’s projects include Ron and Cindy McMackin, who paid roughly $39 million in 2020 for a roughly 15,500-square-foot waterfront house with six bedrooms, then expanded it.
The couple, founders of the mechanical subcontracting company Pan-Pacific Mechanical, had relocated from Hawaii to South Florida during COVID.
“We knew nothing about Manalapan when we moved here,” said Ron, 78. He and Cindy were in the process of moving into a Palm Beach property they owned when their real-estate agent, Lawrence Moens , called. The actor Sylvester Stallone was searching for a home amid the Covid-induced real-estate frenzy, and wanted to see their house.
Before they knew it, they had agreed to sell to the “Rocky” star for $35.375 million, 33% more than the $26.65 million they had paid two years earlier.
This left them without a house. It was slim pickings in Palm Beach, and with five children, they needed plenty of space. Moens suggested Manalapan. At the time, the less-flashy choice was surprising to some of their Palm Beach friends. “I did hear a couple of times from people after that, ‘Why would Lawrence take the McMackins to Manalapan?’” said Ron.
But the McMackins love that it is quieter than Palm Beach, with less traffic. The couple have Sunday dinners with their neighbours, and Cindy has a small group of girlfriends who call themselves the “Manalapan mafia.” The McMackins like it so much that they are building a new, larger home along the same stretch.
Food-service entrepreneur Bob Carlucci and his wife, Aileen Carlucci, paid $11.63 million in 2020 for a roughly 13,000-square-foot Manalapan mansion on the Intracoastal, with a small beach house on the ocean. They are happy to have “discovered Manalapan early, ” Bob said.
Many buyers are tearing down older homes to build new mansions, Malinosky said. Before COVID, Manalapan was seen as more of a vacation destination, so buyers weren’t as choosy. Now that many are seeking full-time homes, however, “they want to make sure that it has the spa, it’s got the 12-car garage, it’s got the fitness centre, it’s got the wellness centre.”
Another prized amenity is a tunnel that runs underneath Highway A1A. Portions of the town are on a barrier island, and some homes sit on the ocean, requiring residents to cross the busy road to reach their docks on the Intracoastal.
Other estates are on the Intracoastal but have small beachhouses on the ocean. A tunnel allows residents to easily go from one side to the other.
Construction of these tunnels has become a rare point of contention between residents. In January, one couple asked the town commission to stop their neighbors from digging under the highway during the tourist season, claiming it was causing traffic to back up.
Building on the coast comes with challenges. Florida building code now requires roofs, windows and doors in high-risk areas to withstand winds of up to 170 miles an hour, according to builder Robert Burrage, who is building MacNeil’s home and four others in Manalapan.
Satter said the property insurance on his personal residence in Manalapan doesn’t include coverage for hurricane damage because it was too expensive. In addition to the annual premium, which was about $150,000 a year, he would have faced a deductible on hurricane damage of about 10% of the assessed value of the house.
He isn’t concerned with rising sea-levels, however. “When I bought my first oceanfront lot, my late father-in-law said, ‘What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know about global warming?’” Satter said. “I sold it at a huge number [in 2016] and made a lot of money. It’s been sold again and again and again—and the water hasn’t done anything.”
Stock market slide
Manalapan’s proximity to Mar-a-Lago has added to its popularity since Trump’s election to a second term, Malinosky said. Many residents support Trump. In the McMackins’ home, a bedazzled MAGA purse hangs in Cindy’s closet and a photo book in the living room shows her attending a Trump event at Mar-a-Lago, where they are members.
But the trade war and stock-market volatility have injected uncertainty into the real-estate market.
Until recently, Hamptons home builder Joe Farrell was considering paying more than $30 million for a building site in Manalapan, he said. He has decided to hold off on any acquisitions for now, however, because of the tariffs and resulting stock-market fallout.
“The market seems to still be pretty good, but people are maybe a little more cautious about parting ways with liquidity,” Farrell said. “I want to see things stabilize before I commit to that kind of capital outlay.”
Elkins said one of his clients considered backing out of a $10 million deal over the last few weeks on Point Manalapan, but decided to move ahead to avoid forfeiting the deposit.
Malinosky said he still sees significant demand for big-ticket properties in Manalapan, especially since many wealthy people are taking money out of the stock market. He said he has closed more than $150 million in deals in the greater Palm Beach area over the past two weeks.
Even with the uncertainty, “there is no shortage of buyers that will spend $100 million right now in Manalapan,” he said.
Shelly Newman, an agent with the Corcoran Group, said she recently sold a piece of land to a spec-home developer for $25 million. And the McMackins are moving ahead with plans to complete their new house, though tariffs have been “the talk of the town,” Ron said.
“I do have a stock portfolio and it is down,” he said. “But I don’t let that affect what I’m doing. We’re very fortunate with resources.”
While Satter agrees with efforts to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., he said he has been blindsided by the extent of the trade war. “I’m not sure about how they’re rolling it out,” he said.
A handful of potential buyers have expressed interest in his $285 million listing, he said, but he realizes the prospective buyer pool is tiny. “There are going to be three or four people who ultimately show real interest and have the capacity to pull the trigger,” he said.
Ultimately, he said he isn’t too worried about the prospects for sale, since he can afford to sit on the property long-term.
Still, real-estate agents said Satter’s property and others may be priced too aggressively, even without tariffs.
British hedge-fund billionaire Chris Rokos is listing his 3-acre Manalapan estate for $150 million, more than triple what he paid for it in 2017. And real-estate investor Vivian Dimond recently cut the price of a Manalapan home by $14.5 million, to $64.5 million. It’s been on the market since September 2024.
For some Manalapan residents, home values are beside the point. Bob and Aileen Carlucci, for example, have no intention of moving.
“We look at each other and we say. ‘This is it,’” Bob said. “You can’t get anything better, we don’t believe—in this country, at least.”
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