Cooling L.A.
Keeping Angelenos safe and cool with the ShadeLA movement—an L.A.-wide effort to add shade everywhere people live, work, and gather.
USC Launched 2025
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Organizing Partners
Participating Entities
Community Partners
Impact Partners
We’re making shade a key part of L.A.’s upgrades ahead of the global games coming to town.
L.A. is changing fast ahead of the Olympics, Paralympics, World Cup, and Super Bowl—with upgrades to transportation, hospitality, and event spaces to accommodate the coming crowds. We teamed up with USC and UCLA researchers to create ShadeLA and make sure shade is part of the plan, too.
With Angelenos from all walks of life–government staff, school leaders, nonprofits, and Olympic planners—we’re adding shade everywhere people need it. And we’re giving people the tools to take care of it, making L.A. safer for the millions of new visitors—and the millions of others who live here every day.
Meet the project team
Monica Dean
Practice Director, Climate & Sustainability
“We’re trying to change the way that we as Angelenos think about our neighborhoods, so that we actually look around and say, ‘where can there be more shade’—in the same way that many of us have thought about trees. How can we be stewards of that civic resource?”
Organizing team
Marianna Babboni
USC Public Exchange
Max Teirstein
USC Public Exchange
Katie Vega
USC Public Exchange
Edith de Guzman
UCLA Lead
Luskin Center for Innovation
Colleen Callahan
UCLA Lead
Luskin Center for Innovation
Recent Updates
Push to save trees damaged by the Eaton Fire
Ahead of Olympics, ShadeLA to expand shade across city
Can we turn our water infrastructure into a climate solution?
New team will brainstorm ways to provide more shade in L.A. ahead of major events
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