The Gulf Coast in the US has to be one of the most uncomfortable areas in the world during the summer months (weather wise). Does any know the percentage of homes that still are not air conditioned in that area?
I live here/there. I can’t give you a number but its a darn small number. Even OLD houses usually have a window AC unit wedged in somewhere to take the edge off.
Desert folks think the old “but its a dry heat” phrase is a joke, but I’ve experienced both and I’ll take the dry heat any day (unless you are talking NO shade and drinking water, in which case its a toss up).
My WAG? Less than 5 percent. And virtually all of those are going to be in the really poor neighborhoods, which I havent cruised lately.
The percentage of homes ‘with’ is high here even 165 miles inland. I can’t imagine very many homes on the coast without; especially on the MS coast, where the majority of housing is going to be brand new since Katrina.
I lived in Naples, Florida and few places didn’t have A/C. I didn’t have it and it wasn’t too bad, like anything you get used to after six months or so. But I was definately an exception. I can’t off hand think of anyone who didn’t have A/C.
I know they had a lot of “open air” businesses. The concept was to experienced the “true” Florida. Which was just a gimick to save on A/C costs 
Like the hotel I worked at had no A/C in the lobby and it was all screens to keep out the bugs and critters. And there were lots of resturants on Fort Myers Beach like this too. There were even laundromats with no A/C just open air and screens.
I live on the gulf coast and can’t think of a single inhabited structure without A/C. Given that you can buy a window unit for <$200, I can’t imagine why anyone would tolerate it. There was an article in the online New York Times recently about people in the New York area who are going without to save money, but down here it would be too stifling. Some of the pre-WW II homes might be habitable without A/C in a pinch, but it would still be very uncomfortable. Homes built later simply wouldn’t work. And not just because of the ceilings-the windows and interior walls are placed wrong for ventilation, they are on slabs, etc.
I do know one person who designed and hand-built a house that didn’t need A/C in the conventional sense. An absolutely unique house and not just because he uses a subsurface A/C (pulls air through buried pipes as a first step in cooling. He still dehumidifies it though). Every interior door has slats and he has special openings in the exterior walls for air filters to allow good air flow into the house, he figured out the air circulation patterns inside the house and included the closets in the air flow, his great room has three large whole house fans at the 12 ft (at least) peak to pull air out, he has his house about 10 ft in the air, a wrap-around porch, and some other tricks. And even with all that, he can seal the openings and run his special A/C when it gets too hot.
It is beautiful, but hardly cost-effective or practical to build more than one. Fortunately he built his house so far in the Mississippi woods that when he applied for a building permit the clerk just looked at him like he was an outsider (he is). They didn’t even issue permits (back in the 80s) for unincorporated areas much less have building codes.
My wife just thought of one kind of establishment-dry cleaners. Some shops don’t try to A/C their buildings. Makes for a hot place to work though.
I used to live in New Orleans and I agree that it is extremely unusual for any home or apartment not to have A/C. Some people obviously did it before A/C became widespread but it was still a quality of life, health, and safety issue even back then. The older homes were designed to deal with it as best as possible but there is only so much architecture can accomplish when July and August roll around. One problem is that it is so humid that it doesn’t cool down all that much at night so it is difficult to sleep without A/C without feeling like you are running a high fever.
I’ve lived in St. Petersburg for 20 years and for the majority of the time, I lived in places that only had window units. Aside from being more or less useless and unbearably loud, electricity in FL is freakin’ expensive. Now that I own a home with central AC, I can’t afford to use it. You would be amazed at what you can get used to when you don’t have a choice.
For about a year, two friends and I lived in a house in Austin which didn’t have AC or heat. Yes, it was completely miserable. We had ceiling fans in each room, which basically just kept the hot air circulating- much like a convection oven.
Never again.
This. You do get used to it. A lot of it is modifying your behavior to exclude sweaty activities when you’re trying to stay clean, and “writing off” other times so as to get as much sweaty stuff done as possible, since you already smell like crap anyway.
And of course I can run the central unit for a couple of hours once the sun goes down, and it’ll generally stay pretty cool in here until past noon.