The article is making suppositions that aren't rooted in data. Here's another data point: where I live there are many homes and apartments that had awnings in t

The article is making suppositions that aren't rooted in data. Here's another data point: where I live there are many homes and apartments that had awnings in the 1920s and don't today, and lack AC as well. Clearly they removed them for other reasons than AC. In my mind a new awning is vastly more expensive than a plastic set of blinds (or even better offering no blinds and having your tenant supply their own curtains) so perhaps that's what happened for these AC-less units.