By now, researchers have well established the benefits of trees in urban neighborhoods. Trees are correlated with better health outcomes. They mitigate the urban heat-island effect and lower energy bills. They raise overall property values.
But how trees and their benefits are distributed across neighborhoods is a complicated picture. A new study published in PLOS ONE offers a provocative look across several U.S. cities at what neighborhoods are most likely to have urban tree canopy (UTC) cover. Money may not grow on trees, the authors write, but in a way, trees grow on money.
Led by Kirsten Schwarz, assistant professor of biology at Northern Kentucky University, the researchers used high-res land-cover data and census information to study the distribution of trees in relationship to race and income in Baltimore, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Raleigh, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C.
[For more of this story, written by Laura Bliss, go to http://www.citylab.com/politic...e-inequality/390132/]
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