New York City has managed to get a million new trees in the ground. Planting a bunch of trees seems like a no-brainer to many of us who are familiar with the logic and evidence in favor of green infrastructure. But this can still be hard for cities. There is a vocal minority of citizens who hate trees. They’re a minority, but did I mention they’re vocal? Then, trees are not a huge expense in the big picture of all the things cities have to pay for, like police, courts, prisons and pensions for example, but their planting and especially maintenance sometimes falls to city departments who are under-funded in good times and the first to get hit by budget cuts in bad times.
New York seems to have gotten past these challenges with strong planning, strong leadership to actually implement the plan, and partnering with a non-profit entity which could really focus on this one mission.
A collaboration between New York City’s parks department and conservation nonprofit New York Restoration Project (NYRP), the initiative just succeeded in planting 1 million new trees in the city this decade. The final tree was planted last month, two years ahead of schedule. While cities like Los Angeles, Boston and Denver have all set the same goal, New York is the first to meet it.
Beyond 220,000 new street trees, MillionTreesNYC planted in parks, on public and private property, and in all five boroughs, increasing the city’s urban canopy by 20 percent.
While the city planted 70 percent of the trees in parks and on streets, NYRP was tasked with getting the remainder into public and private spaces, including hospitals, libraries, churches, public housing developments and private yards.
I do have to point out that “a million trees planted” almost certainly does not mean a net gain of a million trees. While the program was being implemented, some trees must have died of “natural” causes (air pollution, heat stress, poor soil, lack of water). Some also must have been removed for legitimate reasons in the course of construction and infrastructure projects, and if my personal experience in Philadelphia is any guide, not all of those got replanted (the vocal minority of citizens having something to do with this). But all this is exactly why focusing on tree canopy is exactly the right way to look at it. By setting a tree canopy goal and periodically measuring where you are relative to it, you should know if you are replacing the trees lost to attrition at the right rate to keep your overall canopy from dropping.