By Mark Tausig
Need to know: New York City is putting together its first-ever Urban Forest Plan, and New Yorkers have a unique opportunity to shape it. This plan, mandated by Local Law 148 of 2023 aims to expand the city’s tree canopy from 22% to 30% by 2035.
The City is actively seeking feedback from residents to help ensure this plan reflects the needs of all communities—especially those hit hardest by environmental inequities. A public survey is open now through June 16, and several community engagement events are being held to gather input. Visit the new Urban Forest Plan website and click “get involved” to see the list of events
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“The NYC urban forest is a social-ecological system composed of all the trees in NYC and the physical and social infrastructure that supports them. It includes approximately 7+ million trees on public and private property, covering a variety of forest types, from street trees to natural forests, the soil, and the forest understory. The tree canopy covers 22 percent of NYC, with a citywide goal of achieving at least 30% tree canopy cover by 2035.”- NYC Urban Forest Agenda.
Trees are essential infrastructure in NYC. They clean the air. They ameliorate the urban heat island effect. Trees also provide key social benefits. They improve public health and air quality by reducing respiratory illnesses and providing cooling on hot days, mitigating heat-related illnesses. Increased access to tree canopy can also improve citizens’ mental health and well-being by reducing stress, promoting healing, and encouraging contemplation. Trees themselves also hold deep cultural, spiritual, and artistic value.
By providing space and resources for trees, urban green spaces, such as parks, playgrounds, and residential greenery, directly support the health and well-being of their surrounding communities.
With the support of advocates and community members, local actors, the New York City Council passed Local Law 148 in 2023 – an NYLCV Scorecard Bill – calling for the development of an Urban Forest Plan to be updated every 10 years based on public input. NYLCV is a proud member of the Forest For All Coalition, a broad and diverse coalition of organizations formed to support the New York City Urban Forest Plan.
Urban trees and green space are more than just pretty scenery. They can and should be regarded as a preventive public health measure. A 2016 review of evidence by the World Health Organization found that urban green spaces “can promote mental and physical health, and reduce morbidity and mortality in urban residents by providing psychological relaxation and stress alleviation, stimulating social cohesion, supporting physical activity, and reducing exposure to air pollutants, noise, and excessive heat.”
Additionally, several studies have found that people live more active lifestyles near urban forests.
While increased access to these spaces correlates to improved health and quality of life, the uneven urban make up of forest across NYC translates to an inequitable distribution of its benefits.
There tends to be less canopy in parts of NYC with higher proportions of people of color and lower median per capita income. Majority Black and Brown neighborhoods in NYC have 33% less tree canopy on average than majority white communities. On average, low and moderate-income (LMI)- dominated neighborhoods have 25% less tree canopy than non-LMI-dominated neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with the highest poverty rates have 41% less tree coverage than the wealthiest neighborhoods.
These tree canopy disparities exacerbate existing socio-demographic health inequities. Adopting a health equity lens in the planning and management of urban forests can ensure a more equitable distribution of trees across towns and cities and provide residents with access to the health benefits of trees. Hence, census tracts of lower socioeconomic status and/ or communities of color should benefit the most from increases in tree canopy coverage.
The good news is, that approach is very doable. A recent report from the Regional Plan Association shows that it is possible to design the planned increase in tree canopy coverage to prioritize environmental justice communities using a data-driven approach. This design accounts for the number of existing trees, urban heat islands, lower median household income levels, community designation as a Disadvantaged Community (DAC), and NYC’s land use categorization emphasizing residential and mixed-use areas.
The NYC Urban Forest Agenda envisions a healthy, biodiverse, robust, accessible, well-understood, and resilient urban forest that justly and equitably delivers its multiple benefits to all residents of New York City. The plan needs to be proactive in ensuring that the benefits of the urban forest improve the lives of everyone, particularly those in environmental justice and frontline communities.
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The New York League of Conservation Voters’ policy objectives address protecting our environment, tackling the climate crisis, and safeguarding public health. NYLCV develops policy agendas that lay out specific legislative and budgetary remedies tailored to different levels of government and regions of the state. They serve as practical blueprints to help guide elected officials, policymakers, political candidates, voters, and the general public toward a more sustainable future. Although policy agendas are developed and promoted to improve people’s well-being and health, the ins and outs of the policy advocacy process can obscure this ultimate objective.
In this series, Policy Means People, the New York League of Conservation Voters’ policy agenda will be described in terms of the human outcomes that will follow the successful implementation of policy recommendations. Policies have in common that the proposed action will result in a beneficial outcome, but the mechanism(s) whereby this can occur are often left unspecified. We aim to trace the links between policy objectives and the lived experiences of people affected by that policy.
Mark Tausig, Ph.D., is a volunteer writer for the New York League of Conservation Voters. He is a retired Professor of Sociology, where he studied health disparities, social networks, work and mental health, international health, and population aging in low—and middle-income countries. His latest book, Population Aging in Societal Context: Evidence from Nepal, will be published by Routledge later this year (2025).