Sustainable Solutions: Urban Forestry

Who What Where:	America's cities and urban areas are prime centers for economic, social, and environmental renewal. Fostering community action and involvement by its citizens is key to revitalizing an urban core. Chicago has a program that can be modeled and used in your community. Promoting urban forestry is as easy as planting a tree! In Chicago over 500 varieties of trees are planted by citizens and government which provide homes for birds, squirrels and other wildlife.
Why:	Trees are the prime providers of clean air, climate control, pollution abatement, community health, energy savings, and stabilized property values. Trees add beauty and soften the angular look of city streets. Trees provide cleaner air by removing carbon dioxide, releasing oxygen and trapping pollutants. Shading in the summer and solar heating in the winter provide climate control and energy savings. Finally, city trees increase property values by up to 20% and add to the attractiveness of a neighborhood by acting as sound barriers and screening unpleasant views.
What Chicago is Doing:	Urbs in Horto ("City in a Garden") has been Chicago's motto for more than 160 years. Today, Chicago's urban forest - the millions of trees along their streets and in their parks and backyards - help make this city a better and more beautiful place for its citizens and visitors. Since 1989, they have planted well over 300,000 trees. They have reversed a long decline in their tree population due in part to the Dutch Elm disease during the sixties and seventies. Since 1991, Chicago has had in place a landscape ordinance requiring the planting of trees and other landscape screening as a part of their building and zoning permits. To foster public support and involvement the city offers: Chicago property owners free trees to plant along city parkways; annual community landscape awards; and a comprehensive "City Trees" website as an online guide to urban tree care. Through innovative programs, public participation, and proactive ordinances, this city is living its motto of a City in a Garden. Make your city a greener, cleaner, healthier, more productive place to live and work. Plant the seed and allow your city to blossom!
Learn More:	Chicago's City Trees Website: http://w5.ci.chi.il.us/env/CityTrees/index.html Cool Communities: The Urban Forest http://www.coolcommunites.org/the_urban_forest.htm Trees Are My Friends (TAMF) Campaign: http://www.treesaremyfriends.org/ Research & Networking in Urban and Community Forestry: http://www.treelink.org/ Strategic Framework for Smart Conservation: http://www.greeninfrastructure.net USDA Government Plant Database: http://plants.usda.gov/plants National Arbor Day Foundation: http://www.arborday.org/programs/TreeCityUSA.html

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Copyright © 2002 Mary Anne G. Bowie Associates, Inc. Urban Planners. All rights reserved.
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