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  #1  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 1:28 PM
Barbarossa Barbarossa is offline
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Could a megacity have thrived in a hot humid climate before air conditioning?

It seems all the megacities of the past like London, Babylon, etc were all in either cool climates or hot dry climates. Could a city that large have existed in a hot humid rainforest climate before air conditioning?
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  #2  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 1:48 PM
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I guess depending of definition of megacity and the time period.

Calcutta has very hot (26C min, 35C max) and humid summers and it had reached 1 million people in 1900, the 2nd largest on the British Empire and one of the world's largest.

From the top of my mind, other cities with hot and humid summers were quite big around 1900: Rio de Janeiro (800k), Bombay (800k), Madras (500k), Salvador (250k), Recife (200k), Batavia (200k).
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 1:51 PM
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You mean like Mexico City? Calcutta? Angkor Wat?

The real question is how places like that handled mosquito abatement. Heat & humidity on their own don't prevent cities, but malaria might.
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  #4  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 1:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
You mean like Mexico City? Calcutta? Angkor Wat?

The real question is how places like that handled mosquito abatement. Heat & humidity on their own don't prevent cities, but malaria might.
Mexico City is not hot nor humid.

EDIT: Another one: Canton/Guangzhou, very hot and humid summers and about 800k around 1900 (and the same number by 1800).
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  #5  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 1:57 PM
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Mexico City has basically San Diego weather, except more seasonal rain. Neither hot nor humid.
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  #6  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 2:05 PM
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Not in the US. The sunbelt as we know it wouldn't exist without air conditioning.
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  #7  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 3:23 PM
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What population baseline are we working with? Megacities didn't exist until the 1950s, so I assume that we're not using the literal definition. True megacities are also somewhat biased towards warm, humid regions over cold weather regions.

Santo Domingo was possibly the largest city in North America in the period between the Columbus expedition until the Industrial Revolution. Mexico City was the only other in North America that would've rivaled it in population during that period.
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 4:26 PM
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Not in the US. The sunbelt as we know it wouldn't exist without air conditioning.
Well I believe most consider Los Angeles, San Diego, and to some degree San Francisco as sunbelt and you most definitely can live without air conditioning in these cities.
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 4:55 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Santo Domingo was possibly the largest city in North America in the period between the Columbus expedition until the Industrial Revolution. Mexico City was the only other in North America that would've rivaled it in population during that period.
I believe Lima was very big/important during the colonial period as well. If I'm not mistaken the first university in Americas was founded there. Not sure how it compares with those two population wise though.
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:27 PM
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Jakarta, basically every city in India and China and Subsaharan Africa.
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  #11  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:31 PM
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Jakarta wasn't that big. It didn't really boom until after WW2. In 1900, it was about the size of Fall River, MA, or St. Joseph, MO.

But it's poor and I bet most don't have AC even now.
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:42 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
You mean like Mexico City? Calcutta? Angkor Wat?

The real question is how places like that handled mosquito abatement. Heat & humidity on their own don't prevent cities, but malaria might.
Just comes down to immunity. It's why folks in regions that have had high exposure through hundreds of years, thousands in many cases... have developed blood cells that are of a sickle nature. A crescent moon. Why? Because Malaria can't efficiently bond to it. Granted nets have helped to slow the spread, at least preventing deaths under 5, which is a bulk of deaths but even than, cram enough people into an area, ideally one with agriculture potential and one has a mega city.

The thing I wonder is how large would some of these cities in India and Africa would be if things like smallpox were never around. Or even the black death bacteria. Imagine European city size should those mass eradication events had not occurred?

The world lost a ton of folks due to disease or war in the 20th Century. What cities would of looked like had those folks not perished and than went on to reproduce... that one has to wonder.

Surely would of accelerated the need for resources. Possibly the climate situation would of been way worse? Were things or are things like Smallpox, Malaria, TB, and many others actually good for the planet and potentially for people living at the moment... food for thought.

Fun fact that Smallpox literally shaped the world order to what it is today. The plague of Justine did wonders to destroy the Roman empire.
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  #13  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:47 PM
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Houston (metro) had about a million people by the time the AC became mainstream. So that a lot of swamp ass...
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  #14  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 5:55 PM
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Delhi had about 1-2 million people just before the British took control of India in the mid-19th century. Mumbai was about 800k, or roughly the same size as NYC at the time.
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  #15  
Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 6:50 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Jakarta wasn't that big. It didn't really boom until after WW2. In 1900, it was about the size of Fall River, MA, or St. Joseph, MO.

But it's poor and I bet most don't have AC even now.
I visited Belém in 2015, which is way, way poorer than your average Centre-South Brazil metro area and AC was literally everywhere, even in the most humble shops on their old town. I was a bit surprised by it though.

As Jakarta is on the same socioeconomic braket and have the same climate, I imagine AC is everywhere there too.
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Old Posted Mar 12, 2024, 8:04 PM
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Maybe? AC is uncommon in the hot-humid parts of Mexico, despite being much richer than Indonesia.

My in-laws are upper middle class and live in a hot area, but no AC. Don't think I've ever been in a Mexican home with AC. The homes are built for hot/humid climes though, and are nothing like American homes, which would be horrible without AC. In Mexico it's usually fine indoors, even close to 100 F.
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  #17  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2024, 12:22 AM
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Originally Posted by ChrisLA View Post
Well I believe most consider Los Angeles, San Diego, and to some degree San Francisco as sunbelt and you most definitely can live without air conditioning in these cities.
Thanks for highlighting the one exception.

Do you seriously believe metro Phoenix would have close to 5 million people without air conditioning?
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  #18  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2024, 2:00 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cirrus View Post
You mean like Mexico City? Calcutta? Angkor Wat?

The real question is how places like that handled mosquito abatement. Heat & humidity on their own don't prevent cities, but malaria might.
Just to clarify, central Mexico City's elevation is about 7300 feet. Climate is not hot at all. Many parts of the metro are at an elevation much higher than the city center.
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  #19  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2024, 1:56 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Maybe? AC is uncommon in the hot-humid parts of Mexico, despite being much richer than Indonesia.

My in-laws are upper middle class and live in a hot area, but no AC. Don't think I've ever been in a Mexican home with AC. The homes are built for hot/humid climes though, and are nothing like American homes, which would be horrible without AC. In Mexico it's usually fine indoors, even close to 100 F.
That's the issue with cookie-cutter developments. They often use the similar designs and materials across the U.S. without regards to climate temperature and humidity.

In the past prior to active cooling technology, buildings incorporated materials that absorbed and deflected heat, and designs that encouraged airflow to remove heat naturally. Heating energy was expensive & difficult to attain, so people tended to huddle together in one room with one heat source during the wintertime.

Cheap energy and HVAC technology has encouraged us to combat overheating with active cooling & dehumidification. It has encouraged our building designs to sprawl out because we could heat each room easily and relatively cheaply during the wintertime.

Now that we are dealing with climate change and its effects, we should consider some older building designs so that we are less reliant on energy-intensive HVAC to maintain our comfort during hot and cold seasons.
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  #20  
Old Posted Mar 14, 2024, 5:46 PM
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In the past prior to active cooling technology, buildings incorporated materials that absorbed and deflected heat, and designs that encouraged airflow to remove heat naturally.
Prewar houses in Houston have high ceilings, transom windows above doors, and double-hung windows.
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