Inner City Preferences for Trees and Urban Forestry Programs

Municipal services

Park and street trees ranked high among municipal services. When presented with a list of six typical municipal services and asked to indicate whether, under present tax levels, each service should be given more tax dollars, the same tax dollars, or less tax dollars, respondents ranked park and street trees second only to education programs in terms of receiving more funds, and substantially above other services (Table 2). Nearly two-thirds indicated that more funds should be spent on park and street trees, and less than six percent indicated that less should be spent on trees. This also demonstrates that respondents, when given a free choice, usually disregard the fact that with constant budget, any increase must be accompanied by a decrease. Much more is preferred than the amount willing to be sacrificed.

Interest in trees and forests in the city

When asked how interested they were in the management, care and use of trees and forests in the city, respondents generally ranked their interest midway between somewhat interested and very interested. Fifty percent are very interested or very much interested. Eight percent are not at all interested. Even though overall interest is high, interest intensifies with higher income and education levels.

When responses were analyzed in terms of the subgroups indicated on Table 1 (age, income, education, sex, race), a clear majority of each group favored increased spending on park and street trees, with the highest levels of support among high income individuals and whites.

Park attributes

Trees ranked high among park attributes. Respondents were asked to indicate from a list of eleven items, the ones they would like to see more of in their parks (Table 3). Trees and the shade they provide ranked at the top of the list, with two-thirds of the respondents indicating that they wanted more. This high level of support for trees was unchanged across population subgroups. The relative importance of the more passive attributes should be noted since the top four are decidedly more passive than the lower-rated items.

Urban forest areas

The respondents indicated that urban forest areas, particularly tree-lined streets, were important to them. When asked to assess the importance of government providing wooded areas, tree-lined streets, and open park areas, respondents rated tree-lined streets highest, followed by open park lands, and then wooded areas. Note in Table 4 that the mean ratings ranged from somewhat important to almost greatly important. The categories greatly important and very greatly important show substantial differences in support of the options, at high levels.

Importance of trees in particular areas

Of prime importance to managers of urban trees and forests is knowledge of those areas where residents believe that trees are particularly important. With this information, efforts can be chaneled in appropriate directions. Respondents rated the relative importance of trees in seven parts of the city on the basis of a five-point scale from “not important (1),” to “very greatly important (5).” The response frequencies and means are presented, by location, in Table 5.

Residential streets and city parks had the highest mean importance ratings as locations for trees. This was not surprising, as these are areas where urbanites spend a great deal of their time. More than three-quarters of the respondents consider trees in these areas to be either greatly important or of very great importance. However, the quite low importance ratings of trees in parking lots and industrial areas are somewhat surprising. These traditionally treeless areas have been targets of municipal planting programs to improve the monotonous landscapes and screen out unpleasant sights. Respondents ranked such efforts as the lowest priority among the choices presented.

Different population groups generally ranked the same areas in the top five. Whites, more educated, and higher income persons placed higher values on trees in parking lots and industrial areas than did others. The importance of trees in backyard situations is generally higher for upper income and more educated persons.

Summary

Detroit residents indicated strong support for programs aimed at providing street and park trees in their neighborhoods. These programs compared favorably with other municipal services. Trees ranked very high among the attributes of urban parks that respondents would like to see increased. While the highest priority for public tree programs was for street trees, substantial support was also indicated for open park areas, and moderate support for wooded areas. From a different perspective, there was surprisingly limited support for tree programs in industrial areas and parking lots. Support for urban tree programs was generally greater among the higher educated, the higher income, and white respondents although still strong among the other groups.

Choice of residence

Eight out of ten respondents indicated that trees would have an influence on the choice of a place to live. More than half of those indicated that the effect would be great or very great. Individuals with high levels of income and education were the most likely to report that trees would have a strong influence on their choice of a place to live.

Contribution to property values

Nearly ninety percent of the respondents indicated that trees increased property values in excess of ten percent, with twenty-five percent attributing a property value increase in excess of twenty-five percent to trees. Respondents with a high level of education were most likely to attribute high increases in property values to trees.

Attributes

Respondents placed considerable importance on the esthetic attributes of trees. When asked to rate the importance of thirteen attributes of trees on a scale of 1 to 5 (no advantage to very great advantage), esthetic attributes received high ratings (pleasing to the eye, fall color, flowers in spring, and screens unpleasant sights), as did shade, increased property values, and increased privacy and reduced noise (Table 6).

To more fully understand attitudes toward urban trees and forests, four 5″ × 7″ color photographs, either depicting a woodland, a single tree, a tree-lined residential street, or a treeless business district were shown to respondents. After viewing each scene, the respondent was asked to record his or her feelings on a five-point scale between bipolar word pairs (Table 7).

Nine of the polar adjectives can be directly interpreted as positive attributes of an urban setting (beautiful, interesting, pleasant, exhilarating, satisfying, peaceful, clean, inviting, and calming). In each of these instances, the tree standing alone on a lawn received the highest rating, generally followed by the woodland and tree-lined residential street (narrowly divided), with the treeless business district always last. The overall pattern of ratings across the adjective pairs was similar for the three scenes with trees, with the exception that the woodland scene was rated as more mysterious than the others, and the tree standing alone was rated as more public than the others.

Summary

Respondents placed high values on trees in urban environments. A very high proportion indicated that trees would influence their choice of a residence, and that trees make a significant contribution to property values. Esthetics ranked high among the value of urban trees, as did shade, increased property values, and increased privacy and fall color. Scenes depicting urban trees and forests were seen as beautiful, interesting, pleasant, exhilarating, satisfying, peaceful, clean, inviting, and calming.