Maximize tree planting along your main downtown street or throughout the city.

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Maximize tree planting along your main downtown street or throughout the city.

Best Practice of this action
Rating Guideline
1 star Street trees are provided on both sides of at least 60% of the main downtown street at intervals averaging no more than about 40 feet, excluding driveways, utility vaults and street portions inhospitable to trees. Report living snow fences under BPA 9.3; report urban orchards under BPA 27.3.
2 star Major effort providing or offering residents / businesses trees to plant on private property.
3 star Maximize climate resilient tree planting/landscaping on the entire blocks along mainstreet by, for example, funneling money from a business improvement district to alley plantings, pocket/corner parks, parking lot plantings behind buildings, a community depaving party, and the like; develop a tree planting and management program for low-income neighborhoods; achieve a score of 100 using the Tree Equity Score Analyzer.
Resources
  • The Community Canopy Toolkit from the Arbor Day Foundation provides customizable marketing materials to promote your tree program to property owners. The Energy-Saving Trees Toolkit also has customizable marketing materials promoting energy savings from trees.
  • Ideally, street tree planting is done as part of a main street renovation that achieves cost efficiencies by including stormwater, complete street and utility and business facade improvements.
  • Trees Are Missing in Low-Income Neighborhoods (Scientific American, 2021), “for example, communities of color have 33% less tree canopy on average than majority white communities.” 
  • The Tree Equity Score Analyzer evaluates a neighborhood’s existing tree canopy, population density, income, employment, race, age, and surface temperature to determine a community’s Tree Equity. (NOTE this tool is still under development.)
Order Number
4
Action Type
Finite