The City of Pittsburgh is implementing an "Equitable Street Tree Investment Strategy" to better distribute and maintain tree canopies in low-income and low-canopy neighborhoods as it pursues a goal to plant 100,000 trees over the next decade.

Under the new approach, the city's Shade Tree Commission will identify 10 neighborhoods each year to receive "focused, proactive and cyclical" tree maintenance, in addition to urban forest education and tree planting. The Shade Tree Commission acknowledged that a lack of adequate tree maintenance historically has tainted some residents' embrace of new trees in neighborhoods, making those support functions critical to the new trees themselves.

Pittsburgh, which completed its urban forest master plan in 2012, has long recognized the benefits of city tree canopies, including natural cooling and cleaner air quality for residents to breathe. The city's climate action plan also calls for its tree canopy to increase to 60% by 2030, up from 42% when the plan was approved in 2018.

A city analysis of a variety of tree canopy data in Pittsburgh showed low-income and Black communities are home to disproportionately fewer street trees. And poor maintenance of those trees over the years has resulted in degradation of those neighborhoods in the form of sidewalk damage, uncollected leaves and the like.

While 100,000 new trees could provide health, environmental and quality of life benefits to the city, such an ambitious undertaking requires significant resources to not just roll out but maintain. "If you're going to make this commitment, which we agreed was a worthwhile commitment, then let's use an equity lens to roll that out," said Jamil Bey, a member of the Shade Tree Commission and president and CEO of Pittsburgh consulting firm UrbanKind Institute, which helped develop the strategy.

Read the full article about equitable cities by Maria Rachal at Smart Cities Dive.