
Urban trees reveal income inequality - pg
http://persquaremile.com/2012/05/17/urban-trees-reveal-income-inequality/
======
aggronn
Just a comment about definitions for the uninitiated: the term "luxury good"
is a technical term in economics. We use something called "income elasticity"
to compare goods which is simply the ratio of (% change in quantity/% change
price). If something has an income elasticity > 1 or 2 (depending on the
textbook), its sufficient to call something a luxury good, regardless of what
other connotations exist about the good. It doesn't mean that its a rich
person's good in any particular way(s)--it just means that as income rises,
quantity demanded rises disproportionately.

OP isn't doing anything wrong. Just thought I would drop some ECO101 for the
interested.

~~~
einhverfr
So methylated spirits is presumably not a luxury good, I would assume ;-)

~~~
aggronn
The technical term is 'inferior good'. McDonalds, Ramen, and nail polish
remover as a beverage, would probably all be inferior goods.

------
gojomo
A few years ago in San Francisco's Tenderloin, some in the neighborhood
agitated against more trees because they risked attracting rich people:

[http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sectionfront/life/san-
fr...](http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/sectionfront/life/san-franciscos-
red-light-denizens-fight-to-stay-seedy-456135/)

~~~
gaius
Just... Wow. People have died - been massacred - fighting against
ghettoisation. And for these people it's about the "ambience". Can't they see
that safety and gentrification are two sides of the same coin?

~~~
makomk
It doesn't matter how safe a neighbourhood is if you and your kids and your
friends can't afford to live there anymore thanks to urban gentrification.

~~~
roc
That sounds like a problem that should be solved by some means other than
fighting against safety, beautification, etc.

Say, pushing for a strong housing authority to ensure mixed-income housing.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
A strong housing authority would be socialism. Converting urban housing from
rental units to affordable condos is un-American.

I'm partly joking, of course, but you'd be surprised at the epithets and
viciousness that can be thrown around if someone _dares_ disturb the very,
very classist segments of the population who participate mostly loudly in
municipal governments.

------
tokenadult
Taipei, Taiwan has planted a lot of trees over the last thirty years,

<http://www.amcham.com.tw/content/view/3313/>

and as wealth has increased there from third-world to newly industrialized
levels, tree cover has improved immensely. The predominant look of Taipei and
the surrounding suburban cities in Xin Taibei (formerly, Taipei County) is
tall buildings, but the trees at street level

[http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/07/04/2...](http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2011/07/04/2003507387)

are quite pleasant to look at, and have improved residential neighborhoods
quite a lot as they have grown over the past few decades.

Many cities in the United States Midwest have had to reforest because of the
ravages of Dutch Elm Disease,

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_elm_disease>

and Minneapolis has had to be especially intentional about reforestation after
losing thousands of elm trees in the 1970s.

<http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=28>

<http://www.minneapolisparks.org/default.asp?PageID=926>

[http://www.na.fs.fed.us/urban/treespayusback/vol1/ufore%20mp...](http://www.na.fs.fed.us/urban/treespayusback/vol1/ufore%20mpls%20summary.pdf)

It is very satisfying to look across the Twin Cities from an airplane window
or from the observation level of a tall skyscraper building and see mostly
treetops in what are actually urban neighborhoods.

For people who live a long time on the same lot, or who at least have the
chance to see the same lot after moving away, little is more satisfying than
watching a tree grow up. I remember planting trees with my late dad in 1962
for the newly built house where I mostly grew up. I moved away in 1971, but
now live not far away, and can see trees that I remember as saplings now thick
and tall and shading the entire house.

~~~
freehunter
Tree cover can be a bad thing for houses, though. Besides the obvious of
branches falling, my friend just bought a new house where there are major
repairs that need to be done because of the trees planted around it.

Some of the trees are big enough for the roots to cause damage to the concrete
in the walkway, garage, and foundation. The biggest issue, though, is the rot
on the roof. Too many trees means not enough sunlight on the roof means
moisture builds up and rots. Houses need sunlight, and when you pack houses in
on 1/4 acre lots with no yard space to speak of then pile trees around, you
end up with major damages when the trees grow.

My argument is more for less-dense neighborhoods (or replace individual houses
with shared housing like condos or apartments) than it is for not planting
trees. Residential neighborhoods and subdivisions are not ideal conditions for
the environment, no matter how many trees you plant.

------
cperciva
One of my reasons for not accepting Google's offer of a research position in
Mountain View: "There aren't enough trees".

I'm pretty sure the per-capita income of Mountain View is considerably higher
than the per-capita income of Vancouver, but being surrounded by and infused
with trees certainly makes Vancouver _feel_ wealthier.

~~~
adamjernst
Palo Alto has plenty of trees—and not coincidentally, I believe its per capita
income is even higher than Mountain View's.

~~~
cperciva
Yes, I saw some of Palo Alto a few years later and thought it seemed much
nicer. About all I saw when I flew down to interview was the Google campus and
the highway between there and SFO.

~~~
underwater
I don't know of any city that could or should be judged based on the freeway
from its airport.

Having said that, there are nice suburbs around Mountain View and Palo Alto
but they still lacks the feeling that richer suburbs in other places have.
Atherton and Hillsborough are a bit closer but they are insanely expensive.

~~~
cperciva
_I don't know of any city that could or should be judged based on the freeway
from its airport._

Vancouver doesn't have a freeway from its airport, but it does have a train.
If you were going to make judgments, this leads itself to a rather accurate
one.

But yes, my impression of lacking trees was more from the Google campus than
the freeway.

------
jack-r-abbit
When I read things like this it makes we wonder: Are there more trees in an
area because there are more rich people? Or are there more rich people because
there are more trees?

When you have more money you have more options for where to live. Given the
choice, I think many would choose to live in a place with more green space
than less green space.

~~~
pg
Both. People seek out trees, which drives up the prices of houses on tree-
lined streets. But rich people also have more resources to spare to plant and
protect trees.

~~~
cperciva
Also, rich people tend to stay in the same place for longer, so they have more
incentive to nurture small trees in the anticipation of enjoying big trees
later in life -- pretty much the "owners make better neighbours than renters"
issue.

~~~
lostlogin
Yes. I think owning versus renting/tenanting/being housed may have a lot to do
with this. Why go the the effort of planting trees and spending your time on
your landlords garden.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
This is exactly why yard service is included with my rental home. I want to
know my yard is being taken care of. However, in the 13 years I've been a home
owner... I've never planted a tree. I actually had one removed during a
backyard makeover.

------
davidw
I'm a bit sleep deprived due to children, but the first thing that pops into
my head is "primates like trees". I guess as a seed, we haven't fallen too far
from that tree, so to speak.

~~~
tjic
In fact, primates like the intersection of trees and grasslands - open fields
provide visibility, trees provide safety. ...not just for the primates, but
for all sorts of smaller critters, which go by the name "food".

------
zitterbewegung
Lets get a link to the scientific article
[https://fp.auburn.edu/sfws/YaoqiZhang/demand%20for%20urban%2...](https://fp.auburn.edu/sfws/YaoqiZhang/demand%20for%20urban%20forest%20in%20US%20cities.pdf).
This looks like very well researched. It would be neat to see research it in
other european countries or even Canada.

------
kamaal
I planted two plants at two corners of my home here in Bangalore, around 10
years back. Today they are large trees, I don't live in a area that you can
describe as only where rich people stay. But you don't need to be rich to
plant a tree and watch it grow. Its not like maintaining a garden. You don't
have to spend a dime. And most trees don't require much maintenance(That is
how they grow in the forest). So its not a rich man's thing by any measure.

Apart from the season of Autumn, where you need to broom out the leaves the
tree has no other need to tending to. But the benefits are enormous. I go on
the top of my home during the nights and its always cool in all seasons. There
is always shade, early in the morning birds chirp and its very pleasant to
hear that.

My home looks like an Oasis in the middle of an desert as there no trees
around. Kids play under it, People like to stop for quick rest. Even from far
things look green and fine.

Its only an excuse that rich people stray around green places. The fact is
anybody can plant a tree. It doesn't take money to do it.

~~~
lostlogin
And if your area supports evergreen trees, leaves aren't an issue. It does
usually take a little money upfront, but otherwise, yes, it's free.

~~~
officemonkey
In my experience, evergreen trees suck. They still drop needles and cones. The
evergreen in my backyard killed the grass underneath it. We removed it last
year and the lawn came back.

They're fine for forests and hedges, but as a shade tree for a yard, they're
substandard to the maples and elms we have.

~~~
lostlogin
I don't think our trees are even similar to yours, and our evergreens don't
seem to acid the hell out of the earth like yours! New Zealand doesn't have
any deciduous trees I'm aware of... They are usually quite 'dark' though and
make somewhat too much shade if not pruned.

------
domwood
It's fascinating how subtly our environment reflects our livelihoods. For
example, I look out of my window and see two, make that three trees. I advance
fifteen minutes up to a much more affluent district, lo and behold, many trees
and well manicured verges. These same areas are maintained by the same council
and the same taxes. I also had never noticed those differences before.

~~~
gaius
The more affluent area will be paying much more council tax, the rates are
calculated on property prices. It's the same "pool" of tax, sure, but it's in
no way the "same tax".

~~~
domwood
Not where I live. I live in a largish town called Ipswich, in the UK. Now, we
have a _wildly_ diverging GDP demographic, we have people from the poorest 5%
and people from the richest 5% of the population and the council tax rate only
goes up to £3,200 from just over £1,000. When you're earning £70,000, £3,000
isn't a lot of money. When you're earning £16,000, £1,000 is.

~~~
gaius
Are the people paying 3x the tax getting their bins emptied 3x as often? I'm
guessing not... Not to mention that the poorest won't be paying any tax anyway
(since their income is in the form of benefits). Yet they get their bins
emptied same as everyone else. There's no correlation between the tax you pay
and the services you're entitled to.

~~~
domwood
Actually, most benefits count as taxable income in the UK, it's just the tax
is taken before payment. And no there isn't a correlation, I'm not saying
there is. I'm pointing out that, considering the tax band isn't proportionally
that much higher for the more affluent, there's significant divergence in the
level of maintenance in these areas, when all these areas should be maintained
without discrimination.

~~~
gaius
Where do benefits come from? The taxpayer. Taxing them is just shuffling money
between two govt budgets.

~~~
domwood
Indeed. So there's no small degree of irony in taxing people on their tax
funded benefits.

------
reneherse
Anecdote of an outlier: An "historic" and rather well-to-do New England town
familiar to me recently removed all of its trees from a long section of the
main street along the town green. This section of the street has many shops,
and all I can imagine was that shop owners wanted fewer obstructions in front
of their stores. However, the result as I see it, was to make the area much
less pleasant to stroll through, and more barren when seen from afar.

Urban trees help create a sense of shelter and alter the character of light
(shade, filtered, and dappled), significantly lowering the temperature of
otherwise paved areas. They can create a more park-like atmosphere,
encouraging people to seek out a place and linger in it, enjoying its relaxing
qualities. So one would think this would not only be a benefit for residential
neighborhoods, but also retail/commercial ones. Downtown Palo Aalto for
instance.

But in this case, low tree density correlates to a high degree of conservative
small town environmental and architectural ignorance and/or political
ineptitude. The rich folks cut the trees down for one reason or another.

------
officemonkey
>Though like many of Chicago’s boasts that number was probably inflated by
including replacement trees.

My hackles go up whenever I see someone write "probably." If Mayor Daley did
one thing right, he spent a lot of money improving the greenscape in the city.
The most obvious change in the past 20 years (in my opinion) is the former
site of the Lincoln Park Gun Club
(<http://www.lincolnparkconservancy.org/diversy_point.html>). The article
mentions that they removed 11 trees and planted 105. What used to be a fairly
empty and stark promontory is now a glade of nice shade trees
([http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7G6Z_A_Signal_of_Peace_...](http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM7G6Z_A_Signal_of_Peace_Chicago_IL)).

Daley also added center lane parkways along Chicago's wider streets that add
to the shade of the city.

I don't doubt that there are a replacement trees in the total, but I once
heard Daley admonish an employee for replacing good trees with "buggy whips"
just to get the numbers up.

~~~
tjic
> My hackles go up whenever I see someone write "probably."

I'd rather have someone put error bars on their knowledge with "probably" than
emit a shorter, more confident sounding (but more wrong) sentence that omits
the "probably".

------
elchief
Do trees really cost that much to a city? I am genuinely curious. You wouldn't
think so, as they kinda take care of themselves. But maybe there are some
maintenance costs I am not considering.

Do crappy cities hire crappy city planners that cut down all the trees?

Maybe it's that the richer coast cities happen to have climates that can grow
more trees than the more mountainous or desert-like areas?

~~~
drac
they need constant care and monitoring - especially after heavy storms or bad
weather of any sort, really.

The tree lined boulevards in my city routinely disrupt traffic after monsoon
rains - most are close to 40 years old, and every so often will shed a branch
or three onto the road.

~~~
einhverfr
Depends on the tree and type of maintenance. Some monitoring and directional
pruning goes a long way. In general the larger the tree the more maintenance
and monitoring is required.

------
akgerber
This isn't universally true, especially in climates where trees grow
naturally. Oftentimes, the poorest neighborhoods in a city are among the
oldest, and thus the trees have had the most times to mature and grow.

For example, look at <a
href="[https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.684543,-73.948116&spn...](https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.684543,-73.948116&spn=0.088908,0.111408&gl=us&t=k&z=13>Brooklyn</a>).
Bedford-Stuyvesant is one of the oldest neighborhoods, and was once wealthy.
Now it is one of the poorest neighborhoods in inner Brooklyn, but the trees
have grown large with age, and that makes it one of the greenest neighborhoods
from above. Vacant lots even grow verdant with age.

~~~
mtalantikite
Bed-Stuy is also one of the neighborhoods currently going through the most
gentrification in NYC. Other tree-lined, brownstone neighborhoods, closer to
Manhattan may have been first (Fort Greene, Park Slope, Clinton Hill, etc),
but Bed-Stuy is the place currently dealing with it.

Sure, neighborhoods that don't have trees and brownstones get targeted -- look
at what happened to Williamsburg -- but that's largely due to proximity to the
city. Trees get planted after the fact in this case.

If Bed-Stuy wasn't beautiful, it'd be a lot harder of a sell for the
gentrifiers.

~~~
akgerber
Bushwick and Williamsburg don't have particularly beautiful architecture--
just lots of vinyl-sided wood frame tenements. Williamsburg is already as
expensive as parts of Manhattan while Bushwick is gentrifying rapidly too.
Just about all of Brooklyn within close range of Manhattan is either already
very expensive or moving in that direction.

------
smsm42
Of course where richer people live there are more trees. People like trees.
Trees are nice. Rich people can afford to live in nicer place than poor
people. They can afford to waste space on nice trees instead of building cheap
condos at the same place. It's all banalities, not worth writing at length
about.

However, the last part of the article suggests that if you plant trees you
could make bad neighborhood better. It looks like a wrong causality direction
mistake. Rich people wear expensive clothes, but if you put expensive suit on
a poor man, it wouldn't make him rich. Poorer cities won't be fixing by
putting trees in them, this looks like a classic cargo cult thinking. It may
make certain place a bit nicer, but won't change much.

------
jakejake
Having lived in a very poor area of Chicago for a while and moving to a fairly
affluent area I observed that the affluent neighborhoods get certain services
because they demand them from the city. The poorer neighborhoods tend to have
somewhat of a "leave us alone" attitude which unfortunately the city is all
too happy to oblige. I know there are financial aspects at play as well, but
at least from what I observed there definitely was a "squeaky wheel" aspect to
receiving city services.

------
malandrew
Relevant architectural project proposed for São Paulo:

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/7215762319266...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/12588351@N02/sets/72157623192662899/show/)

Too bad that it will take a long time before the rich in SP realize the value
of trees in the city.

------
DanielBMarkham
Looking out my home office window, I see nothing but trees. There's a thousand
feet of trees in any direction before you get to the next house.

But I seriously doubt my neighborhood has become uber-wealthy. More like we
just live in the woods. :)

I say that not to be snarky, but as a way of questioning the methodology being
used here. How do you classify "urban"? What about locations where trees grow
naturally? Is the relationship causal or just random correlation? How about
cities that were built in a loose fashion in a naturally-wooded area? Those in
the desert? And so on.

I note that one study showed if you wanted to find the most dangerous parts of
cities, measure the density of liquor stores. I guess next time I'm in a city
with no trees and a lot of liquor stores I'll know to be really careful.

------
Joakal
That's not true in Australia. There's a 'plague' of poisoned trees to shore up
property prices, especially at vantage points (water/city/etc). However, it
only goes as far as to clear the view. This forces the council to begrudgingly
overlook tree protection laws to take down 'public risk' trees.

Then there's councils maintaining power lines. Who are trimming costs by
cutting trees down to half height. So, there would be those grotesque thick
trunks with small branches coming out sides. They appear so ugly that
residents are having them cut down and removed.

Edit: Here's a well-grown American example:
[http://bullcityrising.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/...](http://bullcityrising.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/07/02/markham_ecampus.jpg)

~~~
vacri
That's only where trees and powerlines are colocated. There is still a demand
for greenspace that runs along wealth lines in Australia. Poor areas will have
some trees, but not like the density of middle-class or wealthy areas.

------
Spooky23
In my city, you can correlate street trees with bad or declining
neighborhoods.

Absentee landlords see trees as a nuisance -- you need to rake leaves in the
fall, and they generally believe that the roots will block up sewers, etc.

------
twomills
Trees are healthy for human psychology. I'm glad cities are planting them.

Strange, though, how different perspectives can change perceptions. The
photograph in the article is said to depict a wealthy city with a large number
of trees, but just looking at the way all those cars are parked in the road,
slowing traffic and posing a constant threat of a crash resulting from a
moment's distraction makes me feel claustrophobic.

------
rgrieselhuber
I was just having a conversation today about whether you could reduce the
crime rate in an area just by planting more trees.

~~~
ericd
What's the reasoning there?

~~~
rgrieselhuber
That trees have a calming effect on populations and create a feeling of
comfort and provision. Also, in hot places, if you remove the stressor of hot
concrete and more heat from above, you might help people feel more relaxed.

~~~
ericd
Hm, yeah, trees to make me feel more placid and less oppressed than concrete,
you're right. I wonder if, with less anger/feeling of being trapped, would-be
criminals would rationally see other ways out of their crappy situations.

------
drpgq
I live in Hamilton, Ontario, which isn't reknowned for being high income, but
certainly has a lot of trees even in lower income areas surrounding the
downtown, especially compared to a lot of Canadian cities. Exceptions are out
there I guess.

------
cafard
The Casey Trees foundation in Washington, DC, is working to improve the canopy
here. I've helped out at a couple of plantings in our neighborhood (which is
admittedly well off). The District government does plant a lot of curb trees.

------
taliesinb
Am I the only one thinking how cool it would be to map income inequality using
computer vision on satellite photographs of cities by counting trees or
greenness?

~~~
sunspeck
I've actually been working on this a couple days since first seeing the
PerSquareMile post...

I guess the cat's out of the bag now, here's my proof of concept:

<http://sunspeck.com/urban-forest-computer-vision/>

There is a bit of extant literature on this, also, you'll see the link in
there. Pretty interesting.

------
sp332
New Hampshire is 84% covered in trees. I wonder if that helped us rank #1
"Most Livable State" 6 years running?

------
tjic
People with money prefer to live in places that are nice.

This is a new insight?

~~~
scott_s
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/im/hindsight_devalues_science/>

There is a difference between "You know, _X_ is probably true, it just seems
obvious" and "Here is empirical evidence for _X_."

------
gcb
Meanwhile in LA people think high palms are trees.

~~~
mlinksva
As of 2006 anyway, LA was shifting away from Palms
<https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/us/26palm.html>

~~~
gcb
feels like they just gave up palms and not replaced with anything then.

