It’s a long- and well-known fact—If you can’t take the heat, get out of the city. So it seems strange in these days of record heat and generally increasing temperatures that the nation’s cities are doing little to mitigate their propensity to make things even hotter—a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect.

The effects of these heat islands are far-reaching. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, they add to heat-wave death tolls, degrade water quality, increase energy consumption, and elevate the levels of atmospheric pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions. Some studies have linked heat islands with increases in extreme weather events such as tornadoes and flooding.

But a recently released study found that while cities are warming at twice the rate of surrounding areas, most of the 50 major U.S. cities' climate plans examined were devoted to quelling carbon emissions and did little to address the increase in temperature.

“We know the big-picture issue is that the planet as a whole is warming, and weather is becoming more extreme,” Brian Stone, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor and one of the report authors, told NPR. “We've got to highlight the fact that in cities in particular, these global-scale changes are actually being amplified.”

A variety of factors converge to make cities hotter—concrete and pavement absorb heat, there’s less vegetation to aid in evaporation, and industries can often create significant heat. The “urban geography” of how buildings are situated in a city can also create and trap heat, according to the EPA.

“It’s not surprising that cities are heating up more rapidly than surrounding areas,” Stone told the Washington Post. “But the extent to which they’re amplifying warming trends did come as a surprise.”

Between 1961 and 2010, rural temperatures have increased about 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit every ten years, while city temps have climbed by an average of 0.56 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Post.

There are steps that can be taken to beat the city heat, other than summering in the Hamptons, of course. They include planting more trees, using reflective roofing and cool paving materials, and adopting policies that limit heat waste from manufacturing and other activities. But first, cities will have to recognize that urban heat reduction needs to be a priority (Chicago’s is a notable exception of a plan that uses these kinds of strategies to reduce the heat island effect).

“If you’re worried about heat waves in the near term,” Stone said in the Post interview, “reducing the heat island effect is the most important thing we can do.”