Here, most of us still have the evaporative cooler (swamp cooler) -- the squirrel cage thing -- on our roofs, because refrigerated air is so expensive both to install and to run here. I also have ceiling fans, which I'm running almost all the time here.
The swamp cooler does a pretty good job, unless it gets up around 98 or so and then, not so much -- I mean it isn't intolerable, but it isn't as cool as a place with refrigerated air, either.
Would be nice to have refrigerated air, but I just can't afford it.