The Importance of Trees and Nature in Community: A Review of the Relative Literature

A BRIEF REVIEW OF COMMUNITY

Community is a favorite word of politicians and bureaucrats and the notion of community is a fundamental idea to most people. There are many definitions surrounding this concept of a fabric of local life. Family, supporting institutions (school, church, health care, local government, financial institutions), shared territory, social interaction, a common life, collective action, and a healthy environment are elements found in the definitions of community (Hillery 1955; Wilkinson 1991). Community has been conceptualized as having coincidence of service area, psychological identification with locality, supporting organizations, local autonomy in decision-making, and strength in the interaction among residents and between residents and institutions (Warren 1972). Wilkinson (1991) described three essential properties of community: 1) as a local ecology or an organization of social life that meets daily needs and allows for adaptation to change; 2) as a comprehensive interactional structure, or social whole, that expresses a full round of human interests and needs; and 3) as a bond of local solidarity represented in people acting together to solve common problems. Nisbet (1953) illuminated the definition of community in these words:

Community is founded on people conceived in their whole rather than in one or another role, taken separately, that they may hold in the social order. It draws its psychological strength from levels of motivation deeper than those of mere volition of interest. Community is a fusion of feeling and thought, of tradition and commitment, of membership and volition. Its archetype, both historically and symbolically, is the family, and in almost every type of genuine community the nomenclature of family is prominent (p. 77).

The foundation of community is social interaction; individuals and groups working together and pursuing commonly held goals (Luloff and Swanson 1995). From an interactionist’s perspective, social interaction is what creates the fabric of community; it encourages and allows the emergence and development of community (Hillery 1955). Community has been defined as an aggregate of people sharing a common interest in a particular locality, and Bender (1978) described community as having an interactional quality that allowed it to be defined as experience reinforced by space. Thus, community is just not a place; it is a place-oriented process. In this process, the physical characteristics and qualities of place, or environment, are recognized as playing important roles in the health, interaction, and capacity of community.

A BRIEF REVIEW OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

In community development, the quality of social interaction, or the comprehensive network of collaboration and actions among people, institutions, and the physical and natural environments, is important. Those interested in the development of community are interested in the quality of relationships among residents, institutions, and environments of a locality. Development of community requires attention to cohesive and integrated economic, social, and environmental structures (Kaufman 1959; Wilkinson 1991). Modern theories of sustainable community development, or smart growth (Hall and Porterfield 2001), are related to both older theories of neighborhood design (Perry 1939) and development of community (Wilkinson 1991) and explicitly recognize the interdependence of economic, social, and environmental factors (Ahern and Fabel 1988).

In progressive theory, development of community is more than enterprise development. Although economic goals are an overriding objective in many community development projects, economic gain without development of community can be divisive, exploitative, and unsustainable. Community development must include the experiences provided by attempts and successes of residents to strengthen themselves and their community. This work is facilitated by an interactional perspective of local society where channels of cooperation and communication are empowered and maintained, where human relationships are supported and strengthened, and where a shared concept of improvement is mutually developed. A developed community is both improved and its people empowered through skills and experiences, and a healthy physical and natural environment supports this type of progressive work (Kaufman and Wilkinson 1967; Wilkinson 1991). Community development focuses on places, economics, people, programs, and environments together. It is all of these and a well-woven, integrated social fabric resulting from adequate planning and integration of activities that meet peoples’ day-to-day needs (Kaufman and Wilkinson 1967).

TREES AND NATURE AS SOCIAL ELEMENTS

In addition to environmental (Dwyer et al. 2000), human health (Ulrich 1983; Kuo and Sullivan 2001), economic (Irwin 2002; Lutzenhiser and Nolusil 2002), educational (Nowak et al. 2001), youth (Taylor et al. 1998; Kuo 2003), and safety and civility (Kuo 2003) values, the natural environment plays a significant role in the healthy and successful social lives of people by providing shared and structured symbols. These symbols (e.g., historical buildings and landscapes, monuments, trees, hills) help ground people in their everyday lives, and as change occurs, they provide residents with a consistent sense of place and comfort (Appleyard 1979; Hester 1990). Trees and landscapes can be shared and structured symbols, caring and supportive symbols that become part of the identity and features of a place that invoke pride, attract outside attention, and stimulate economic activity (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2002). Alexander et al. (1977) pointed out:

Trees have a very deep and crucial meaning to human beings. The significance of old trees is archetypical; in our dreams they often stand for the wholeness of personality. The trees people love create special places; places to be in and places to pass through. Trees have the potential to create various kinds of social places (p. 798).

Trees, parks, and other components of the natural environment become powerful social symbols when they are perceived as being part and representative of a social group (such as a neighborhood), especially when nature plays an influential role in relationship to social functions such as family, home, play, love, health, and equality (Appleyard 1979). Nature again proves important because the sense of self in place is more important than simply a sense of place, and people’s relationship with their natural environment can help build a stronger connection to their place (Hester 1990). As such, the significance of nature’s social role in reinforcing a sense of locality or place plays an influential role in community development. Trees and other natural features help to create and maintain a sense of place; that is a feeling of identification and belonging that is important to people’s enjoyment and well-being and to the process of community.

Very strong emotional ties can exist between people and elements of natural settings such as trees (Dwyer et al. 1991, 1992). Greider and Garkovich (1994) argued that landscapes can be “the symbolic representation of a collective local history and the essence of a collective self-definition.” Social meaning and intention can heighten in cases of environmental conflict or opportunity, and inversely, environmental conflict and opportunity occurs in cases in which social meaning is especially critical (Appleyard 1979). Greider and Garkovich (1994) discussed the social connection between people and their natural environment:

… That what is important in any consideration of environmental change is the meaning of the change for those cultural groups that have incorporated that aspect of the physical environment into their definition of themselves (p. 21).

Taken together, these values of trees and nature support the capacity of community to develop and the process of community. They illustrate the important connections between people and nature even in highly urbanized places and their value in community development strategies.

A DEEPER LOOK AT NATURE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Many early social ecologists viewed the natural environment as a featureless surface on which social patterns and relationships distributed themselves (Firey 1947). Today there are much different ideas about the relationship of nature to social settings and processes (Wilkinson 1979, 1991; Nowak et al. 2001). Many authors suggest that ecological well-being is a critical component of both individual and community well-being. A sociologist named Wilkinson (1991) discussed this thought:

Social and individual well-being cannot be achieved except in ways that also promote ecological well being. Ecological well-being, which in a literal sense means the well-being of the house of civilization, refers explicitly to natural and other conditions that support and sustain human life. It is not accurate or appropriate to treat the environment as though it was somehow separate from the social life it supports. An active interdependency characterizes the relationship between social life and its surroundings. References to human and environment separation cannot be justified on any grounds today, if they might have been justified heuristically in the past (p. 75).

Wilkinson (1991) described the potential for increasing both human and community capacity as growing from an intimate relationship of trust of both self and society. Both the ability to establish trust and the potential for capacity is suppressed by deficits in meeting primary human needs and social and cultural patterns (housing, education, health care, safety, political representation, recreation) that discourage interaction and community work. These “patterns” also include environmental racism and unhealthy natural environments, or phrased differently, healthy natural environments that are not freely accessible to all people.

Social ecologists and other authors argue that healthy and accessible natural environments provide opportunities for people to interact and generalize across interest lines. These opportunities help develop community, places characterized by shared spatial experiences and concern (Wilkinson 1991). Promoting the development of technology and economy, the interaction of people, and healthy environmental surroundings are all crucial for community. An active interdependence characterizes the relationship between productive community life and healthy and accessible environmental surroundings (Ahern and Fabel 1988).

USING TREES AND NATURE FOR COMMUNITY CAPACITY

Community capacity is simply defined as the strengths and assets of community members both individually and collectively brought to a cause. It is related to the term organizational capacity, or the ability to do meaningful work. Frank and Smith (1999) described community capacity this way:

… It is the ways and means needed to do what has to be done. It is broader than simple skills, people, and plans. It includes commitment, resources, and all that is brought to bear on a process to make it successful (p. 26).

Building community capacity, or the ability of the people of a place to work together toward common goals, is one critical stepping stone in community.

As has been discussed, interaction and participation in are essential parts of positive community change. As people’s public activity and experience increase, so do the levels of community capacity (Wilkinson 1979; Cottrell 1983; Ayers and Potter 1989). Whether they realize it or not, arborists and urban foresters find themselves involved in building community capacity, especially when they are working with participatory and educational programs and projects. The degree to which community members identify with and enjoy nature and interact in the planning, maintenance, and use of trees and public landscapes is one of the interrelated factors important in building community capacity. First, public landscapes and parks are more effective in meeting local people’s needs if they are very involved in planning, decision-making, and building. Second, highly participatory environmental projects can promote social structure and organization even in the most deteriorated neighborhoods by building interaction and capacity through block clubs, neighborhood organizations, church groups, and public and private partnerships (McDonough et al. 1991). The degree to which people are educated and involved in docent programs, tree plantings, environmental restoration projects, and other environmental volunteer and educational work can increase positive identification with a locale; increases the quality of relationships among people and between organizations; increases public knowledge, networking, and experience; increases community capacity; and helps the development of community to occur (Rudel 1989; Lipkis and Lipkis 1990; Maslin et al. 1999).

Many case studies of inner-city projects in which arborists and urban foresters are closely involved support using the natural environment as a vehicle to build community capacity in the development of community (Shutkin 2000). These descriptions of practical endeavors agree that planning for, maintaining, and managing trees and public landscapes does build community capacity, which supports community development. In addition to supporting healthy neighborhoods and communities, tree planting and other environmental projects have been repeatedly used by organizations such as Philadelphia Green, TreesAtlanta, Friends of the San Francisco Urban Forest, Los Angeles Tree-People, and New York GreenGorillas to rebuild the sense and capacity of community and ameliorate the effects of drugs, crime, violence, apathy, and despair in often seemingly hopeless neighborhood settings:

Planting a tree enables a person to have an immediate, tangible, and positive effect on their environment. It fosters community pride and opens channels for individuals to meet their neighbors, tackle community problems, and build neighborhood associations (Kollin 1987, p. 96).

Tree planting fosters community spirit and pride, bringing people together for meaningful purpose that can build the bridges and promote the understandings that bring the neighborhood together. The initial efforts of the tree planters compound themselves as others find in the trees a deeper appreciation of the community as well as natural beauty. It is the beginning of the formation of new values that is the foundation for city-wide transformation. The newly organized group can further push for bike paths, improvements in public transportation, and changes to make the area less congested, less polluted, and more livable (Lipkis and Lipkis 1990, p. viii).

Planning and completing tree planting, urban gardening, and other types of green projects inspires neighborhood and community groups to change the environment of their streets (neighborhooding), giving a new understanding of and character to their neighborhood and to the city as a whole (Schrieber and Vallery 1987, p. 14).

The simple act of planting a tree, along with the more complicated projects of civic environmental restoration, has positive effects on the economic, social, and environmental elements of community. These types of actions are especially important in ignored and disenfranchised places where the battle cry of community capacity is “celebrate any success.”