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Baltimore is known for its lack of trees, so I know we won't win this.
There's only one city on the East Coast that has a smaller tree canopy.
I live in it.
The city has a program called TreePhilly that will hand out both street and yard trees to anyone who asks for them and agrees to look after them (another program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will help with the latter). Its goal: to get the city's tree canopy up to 30 percent, not just citywide but in every neighborhood as well.
The trouble is, in Philadelphia as in Baltimore*, many homeowners, especially in low-income neighborhoods, believe trees break open their pipes and break up their sidewalks and thus want no part of street trees. Neither is the case: trees drill roots only into pipes that are already leaking, and a properly planted street tree of the right type should leave the sidewalk intact.
*I was a respondent to a symposium a Morgan State University architecture professor organized on possible futures for Baltimore four years ago. One of the presenters at the symposium represented an organization that does for Baltimoreans what TreePhilly does for Philadelphians. She told the story of a project they had planned for a barren East Baltimore block: they had picked out the trees and were all ready to dig the holes they would be placed in — until they arrived on the block and found a bunch of pissed-off residents who were having none of this. The lesson her group learned, she said: "Do your due diligence first." I think I'd characterize it as "Make sure you get buy-in from the residents first."
There's only one city on the East Coast that has a smaller tree canopy.
I live in it.
The city has a program called TreePhilly that will hand out both street and yard trees to anyone who asks for them and agrees to look after them (another program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will help with the latter). Its goal: to get the city's tree canopy up to 30 percent, not just citywide but in every neighborhood as well.
The trouble is, in Philadelphia as in Baltimore*, many homeowners, especially in low-income neighborhoods, believe trees break open their pipes and break up their sidewalks and thus want no part of street trees. Neither is the case: trees drill roots only into pipes that are already leaking, and a properly planted street tree of the right type should leave the sidewalk intact.
*I was a respondent to a symposium a Morgan State University architecture professor organized on possible futures for Baltimore four years ago. One of the presenters at the symposium represented an organization that does for Baltimoreans what TreePhilly does for Philadelphians. She told the story of a project they had planned for a barren East Baltimore block: they had picked out the trees and were all ready to dig the holes they would be placed in — until they arrived on the block and found a bunch of pissed-off residents who were having none of this. The lesson her group learned, she said: "Do your due diligence first." I think I'd characterize it as "Make sure you get buy-in from the residents first."
There's only one city on the East Coast that has a smaller tree canopy.
I live in it.
The city has a program called TreePhilly that will hand out both street and yard trees to anyone who asks for them and agrees to look after them (another program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will help with the latter). Its goal: to get the city's tree canopy up to 30 percent, not just citywide but in every neighborhood as well.
The trouble is, in Philadelphia as in Baltimore*, many homeowners, especially in low-income neighborhoods, believe trees break open their pipes and break up their sidewalks and thus want no part of street trees. Neither is the case: trees drill roots only into pipes that are already leaking, and a properly planted street tree of the right type should leave the sidewalk intact.
*I was a respondent to a symposium a Morgan State University architecture professor organized on possible futures for Baltimore four years ago. One of the presenters at the symposium represented an organization that does for Baltimoreans what TreePhilly does for Philadelphians. She told the story of a project they had planned for a barren East Baltimore block: they had picked out the trees and were all ready to dig the holes they would be placed in — until they arrived on the block and found a bunch of pissed-off residents who were having none of this. The lesson her group learned, she said: "Do your due diligence first." I think I'd characterize it as "Make sure you get buy-in from the residents first."
I can attest to the trees messing of the sidewalks, because I've seen it first hand on the block that I grew up on; coincidentally, I grew up a half block away from Morgan State University. That part of Baltimore (Northeast Baltimore) has good tree coverage, but once you reach 33rd street, and Especially North Ave., trees become scarce.
I grew up on Elm Street. Dutch Elm disease got the last of the elms in the 1960s. There are an awful lot of cities that lost their trees then when times were tough with very stressed city budgets and neglected to replace their dead trees.
I grew up on Elm Street. Dutch Elm disease got the last of the elms in the 1960s. There are an awful lot of cities that lost their trees then when times were tough with very stressed city budgets and neglected to replace their dead trees.
That happened in Kansas City too, where the boulevards were all denuded in the mid-1960s thanks to the Dutch elm disease.
I remember riding with my parents up Swope Parkway and seeing every tree marked with a white "X" to indicate it had to be cut down.
But times were not so tough that the Parks and Recreation Board couldn't plant new trees to replace the felled elms.
I was astonished to return to KC in 2014 and find that Benton Boulevard, the boulevard closest to my childhood home (one block to its east), had become a green cathedral thanks to the trees that had risen well above the street to the point where their branches met over it.
I grew up on Elm Street. Dutch Elm disease got the last of the elms in the 1960s. There are an awful lot of cities that lost their trees then when times were tough with very stressed city budgets and neglected to replace their dead trees.
Ditto in Cleveland when I was growing up. Many elms were sprayed and saved, but a lot of them we destroyed by the disease.
As far as northeastern cities go- not familiar with them all, but while I don't think that anyone would consider Philly the "greenest," Fairmount Park definitely does add some nice amount of greenery to the outskirts of the city that many people don't think about. Similar to Lincoln Park in Chicago. Chicago wouldn't be considered the "greenest," but I don't know that many people from outside of Chicago realize how big Lincoln Park is (it stretches for miles off of Lake Michigan) and just how lush and green it is (with nice trials, etc).
The Baltimore/DC feature the largest consistent areas of USDA Hardiness zone 7-8, making them the mildest in winter of all the cities listed here in the poll. Thus, in addition to the general abundant tree coverage typical of Eastern US cities, they also provide the best opportunities of seen evergreen lush vegetation (albeit cold hardy). So I'll go with these two.
Otherwise, both regions are utterly dead and lifeless during winter. There's probably not a single green tree in sight across the entire Midwest (other than some cold-looking boreal vegetation along the Canadian borders).
Not entirely true, much of the lower Midwest and even parts of the upper Midwest are warm enough to grow some hardy cultivars of Evergreen Southern Magnolia, we even have a few fairly large specimens here in Windsor, we are US hardiness zone 6B (7A) in Canada, but for the most part, yeah, it’s pretty lifeless looking in winter.
As far as northeastern cities go- not familiar with them all, but while I don't think that anyone would consider Philly the "greenest," Fairmount Park definitely does add some nice amount of greenery to the outskirts of the city that many people don't think about. Similar to Lincoln Park in Chicago. Chicago wouldn't be considered the "greenest," but I don't know that many people from outside of Chicago realize how big Lincoln Park is (it stretches for miles off of Lake Michigan) and just how lush and green it is (with nice trials, etc).
The problem here is, having a bunch of trees on a reservation does little or nothing to improve the environment or climate of the city streets. Only street trees do that.
The point of TreePhilly and similar programs in other cities is: You shouldn't have to go to where the trees are. The trees should be where you live already.
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