It used to be kind of the norm. We just called it vernacular architecture back then and chalked it up to "local style" rather than fully grasping that it such regional styles were the product of using locally sourced materials and then designing to the best of our ability for human comfort given the local weather and climate.
That’s basically making the best with what shitty technology there was back then. It’s not nearly as good as air conditioning or else people would just build houses the same way.
Essentially the entire Phoenix valley is unlivable in the summer without energy assisted cooling either with A/C or evap. The native Americans didn’t even live down low during the summer. You can’t beat physics with some well placed windows.
The “deep south” you referred to is about as easy of a climate you can get to live in the continental US without energy assistance apart from maybe Southern California. The air conditioning energy spent to cool down a home 15 degrees in the summer in Mississippi is a drop in the bucket compared to what it takes to heat New York or Minneapolis homes in the dead of winter.
I grew up in the Deep South. Rest assured, people lived there before AC was a thing.
Houses were designed for cross ventilation with open windows.
Some houses had wrap around porches on three sides so windows could be left open even when it was raining.
Historically, they made a second outdoor kitchen so you could cook in summer without heating the whole house. To this day, grilling out in summer weather is a common practice.
The world currently has nearly 8 billion people. I imagine an awful lot of places have much higher populations than they used to have, regardless of climate, available tech or quality of life.
So unless you can cite sources that can show this was due entirely to AC per se and not at least partly due to population growth generally, that little factoid may well fall under the heading how to lie with statistics.
Basically doubled would be what some folks would call a statistic.
Crap you found via Google -- so likely crap I could find if I cared enough to bother to look. And you didn't bother to do pull quotes to support your position.
Color me unimpressed and unswayed. In my experience, good passive solar design makes for more human comfort, not less, than our modern tendency to build crappy cardboard boxes and tack on HVAC.
Source: I have been living without AC in the US for some years now. I've spent more than four years now living in old buildings and it's such a shame we just don't build them like we used to. Life is better if you can achieve a comfortable temperature most of the time without AC.
