Yule Heibel's Library tagged urban_forest →  View Popular, Search in Google

QUOTE
While low dense brush seems to increase it, tall broad canopies seem to decrease it. That nuanced conclusion harmonizes with another study published earlier this year, in which U.S.D.A. Forest Service researcher Geoffrey Donovan (who has also linked urban tree coverage to home prices) reports the same mixed tree-crime associations in Portland, Oregon.
UNQUOTE

urban_forest urbanism crime atlantic_cities

Well, hear, hear.
QUOTE
“Ugliness is so grim,” urban beautification advocate Lady Bird Johnson once said. “A little beauty, something that is lovely, I think, can help create harmony which will lessen tensions.”
UNQUOTE

urban_design urban_forest trees smartplanet

+1 on more urban trees. Few things improve a streetscape more. It seems that higher urban temperatures help trees grow, and then of course more trees also mitigate the urban heat island effect.
QUOTE
Despite other conditions that might have influenced this faster growth, the researchers have determined that the hyper-growth speeds are largely attributable to the higher temperatures in the city. They confirmed this hypothesis with seedlings grown in a lab under similar temperatures and conditions.

Trees can provide a number of benefits to urban areas. Their positive impact on property values has been documented extensively. Urban trees have also been found to provide a significant economic benefit to cities due to their role in stormwater treatment, energy use reduction, air quality improvement and carbon sequestration.

Trees have also been found to help counter the urban heat island effect that is apparently helping them grow much faster – a negative feedback loop that suggests planting more trees in the city makes a lot of environmental sense. The warmer temperatures caused by the urban heat island effect are certainly causing problems in cities, but they're also creating what have turns out to be ideal conditions for tree planting.
UNQUOTE

trees urban_forest cities amenities atlantic_cities

Hurrah for urban forests (even if the statistics here may turn out to need a grain of salt before taking...).
QUOTE
Every tree in urban Tennessee provides an estimated $2.25 worth of measurable economic benefits every year. Might not seem like a lot, but with 284 million urban trees in the state, the payoff's pretty big.
UNQUOTE

trees urban_forest atlantic_cities

Not as powerful, perhaps, as photos of Detroit's ruins, these aerial shots of nature overtaking formerly built-up urban areas is startling in its own way:
QUOTE
As with many industrial cities in America at the time, post-war St. Louis experienced a rapid decline of its inner city. Desperately seeking solutions before the decay could absorb downtown, local planners and politicians saw slum clearance as the best option.

Decades later, the results are nothing to celebrate. An aggressive demolition policy failed to create a better neighborhood. Instead, it led to a different kind of stigmatized inner city. The chaotic, dirty and declining urban condition of the mid-20th century gave way to the urban prairie of the 21st.
UNQUOTE

atlantic_cities st_louis slums urban_renewal urban_forest

Excellent resource on urban forests, benefits thereof.

rubbersidewalks trees urban_forest reference

City of Victoria has a couple of parks master plan workshops coming up this month, January 09 (tomorrow & on 1/24) to figure out how to manage continuation and replacement of current "urban forest." (See city website for "Urban Forest Master Plan".)

[Note that the statistics given in this article apply to the City of Victoria (which is downtown core and core neighbourhoods, ~80K pop.), NOT the Greater Victoria area nor the CRD (Capital Regional District), which is 13 municipalities. CRD/ Greater Victoria municipal politics is screwy - we badly need amalgamation of the core municipalities (Victoria, Oak Bay, Saanich, Esquimalt, View Royal).]

urban_forest victoria parks